122: Why You Can’t “Just Stop”: Porn Addiction, Your Nervous System, and Polyvagal Theory Explained

If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t “just stop” watching porn—why you cycle through cravings, shame, self-promises, and relapse—this episode will change the way you see your struggle forever. Because the truth is, porn addiction is not a willpower problem. It’s a nervous system problem.

In this episode, I’m joined by my friend and colleague Chris Chandler, a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT), trauma specialist, and one of the most grounded, brilliant men I know in the world of addiction neuroscience, trauma healing, and nervous system regulation. Together, we break down the deep biological, emotional, and spiritual roots of pornography addiction and why most men stay stuck for years without ever understanding why.

We explore polyvagal theory, the fight-flight-freeze response, and how sympathetic activation, dorsal vagal shutdown, and ventral vagal connection shape everything—from your cravings and emotional triggers to your patterns of withdrawal, anxiety, and relational disconnection.

This isn’t just another conversation about “trying harder.”
This is about learning how your body, brain, and nervous system actually work—and how to regulate yourself in moments of anxiety, craving, emotional pain, conflict, and stress.

We discuss practical strategies for recovery, including:

• Vagus nerve regulation
• Breathwork for anxiety
• Embodiment practices that increase emotional presence
• IFS (Internal Family Systems) for understanding your protective parts
• Healthy boundaries and relational repair
• Mindfulness for addiction
• And why the opposite of addiction is connection, not sobriety

If you’re ready to stop feeling defeated…
If you’re ready to stop fighting your body and start understanding it…
If you’re ready to step into grounded masculinity, emotional depth, and real long-term recovery…

Explore more of Chris's work at: https://www.breathtobones.com/
Learn more about his program at: https://www.joinrelay.app/

Link to Blog Article for this Episode

If you’re ready to build the mindset and lifestyle that lead to long-term freedom from porn addiction, visit NoMoreDesire.com and apply for my 1-on-1 Porn Addiction Recovery Coaching Program. You’ll gain the structured tools, accountability, and training you need to transform not only your habits—but your heart.

Grab my Free eBook and Free Workshop for more strategies to overcome porn addiction, rewire your brain, and rebuild your life

Transcript

Jake Kastleman (00:00.088)
This has been a long time coming as we were just discussing before this. Chris and I have rescheduled three times, I think over the last three months, something like that. we're finally here. We're finally here. So tell people a bit about you, Chris. I know I've had a little bit of an introduction there, but tell them about what you do, what's important to you. We're talking about polyvagal theory today. I'm really excited about that conversation. But yeah.

you brother.

Jake Kastleman (00:29.144)
tell people a bit about you.

I mean, you hit it pretty good there, man. I'm not sure what else would be helpful to add to that, honestly. Yeah, I mean, I've been doing the work a long time and, you know, I think, I don't know, I actually, I don't know what else would be helpful. I kind of want to jump into the material, but, I'll say this. I guess background could be helpful. I mean, I've worked inpatient psych, outpatient, intensive outpatient, nonprofit, private practice. So I've worked in a lot of contexts. I feel like I've been doing the work informally my whole life, but.

and we can get into my story maybe a little bit. but I'm, I'm, I'm captain knucklehead. So I feel like I've lived a lot of my life in reverse where I, I, I learned the hard way, you know, I kind of like live, live the stuff that I'm now, you know, teaching training and, and experiencing with other guys. But, yeah.

Yes, I actually would love that. Let's get more specific with that question of talking a bit about your story and what brought you here.

Yeah, I kind of fumbled my way into this work and I, um, I don't know, you know, I'm not actually Jake, we didn't even talk about this. I don't really know your, your audience that well, but I'm a faith based counselor. so, um, I became a Christian in high school and I think that kind of really set some stage. I got expelled from in middle school. Uh, I was running with a little bit of a rough crowd and, and, um, the ironic thing was that the thing I got expelled for was actually pretty silly. My, my friend brought a cap gun to school and I, I was in possession of it, but.

Chris Chandler (01:59.854)
I

So it wasn't even something cool, right?

Yeah, it wasn't cool. But I was cool though. I did spend a lot of time in the principal's office for getting in fights and I got suspended a number of times. So, the ultimate expulsion was kind of silly. But, so yeah, man, I was just in a lot of pain is what I'm saying. And I, but I became a Christian in high school and, that kind of changed the trajectory of a lot of things. I had always loved building things and I thought I wanted to build buildings, but I really started realizing I wanted to build relationships with, with people and that felt far more meaningful. so.

coaching, counseling. I didn't know what that looked like. I thought I was going to go to grad school for school counseling, but ended up as a clinical counselor. And yeah, man, it's just been, it's quite a ride, man. I, in grad school, I kind of got my heart broken, by this woman I thought I really was in love with. And, and it just sent me in a tailspin of just completely, not, not abandoning my faith, but just really questioning my faith and really struggling through a lot of, a lot of big things. And.

lost my virginity that year, started drinking like crazy, going out just, you know, six, seven days a week. I'm into the bars, lot of one night stands, lot a lot of just a lot of pain, man, a lot of, you know, getting DUIs and, um, just crazy making and met my wife a couple of years later, uh, working together at inpatient psych hospital. And, uh, that just began like really transformed, kind of bringing me back to the church and bringing back, back to my faith. um,

Chris Chandler (03:28.482)
And around that time I discovered the CSAT training and realized that there was this whole thing called sex addiction. And I was like, this isn't just like bad habit. You know, I can't just get my act together. so all that to say, like, I feel like God put me into addiction work when I was working inpatient psych, even though I was out getting DUIs and sleeping around, I'm leading these groups in a hospital, like helping people get sober while I'm out, you know, just couldn't be in a complete idiot. And so I guess that's, that's what I would say is my life has always felt like

I'm kind of living the depravity and then the Lord's kind of using this work to kind of help me experience recovery myself. And, and by God's grace, man, I mean, I've been walking in recovery now for 10, 15 years and sober from all of my primary drugs of choice and always growing, right? Always learning and getting deeper into my co-dependency and my workaholism and other areas where I'm unhealthy. But, yeah, man.

can relate to a lot of that, man. I love what you said about always working, always growing, workaholism and codependency. And those have all been patterns in my life too and things that I'm currently always learning more about and growing in those ways. And I think that that story, Chris, of like dark night of the soul kind of thing, and you going through all these struggles with addictions and everything else, this gives the undertone of meaning.

behind what you do and really what you want to help other people do as well. I wish that that wasn't necessary, but it feels like that's so often the pattern. So really inspiring, amazing that you are where you are. And a vast majority of the people who listen to this podcast are Christians. So definitely speaking about God and all that is perfectly welcome.

Yeah. And I don't, I don't, I'm never going to shy away from it, but I also want to be mindful and honoring to people that are, know, cause a lot, there's a fair amount of my clients that come to see us, see me and I buy us. just mean, have quite a, quite a community at this point of men that are in recovery groups and, and they, hear about what we're doing and they, and they, love it. So guys that are agnostic and atheist and different faith backgrounds. so.

Chris Chandler (05:37.527)
I welcome all and I don't, but I'm also not going to sugarcoat as far as like my story and who God is to me and what that has done and what he's done in my life.

I love that. I love that man. Well, so let's tell people a bit about polyvagal theory first off, how it relates to mental health, how it relates to addiction and it's a really, really cool field. So I'm very new to this by the way. So I'm coming in with a newbie perspective but I'm studying a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, right. I don't believe that, but yeah, I'd love to dive into it, man.

Yeah, well, so I know, cause you, I know you, I think you found out that I, I'm, this is something that I've integrated a lot into the work. and so you're, you're like a dog on a bone, man. You're like, you're like, I know you're excited to talk about it. Could I back up one step and give a little bit of background of the brain, on a, for me, a little bit, not necessarily more macro, but maybe like the building blocks of the brain and then understanding how the nervous system fits into that. Would that be okay?

Yes, that would be wonderful because this is really the word polyvagal theory. I'm assuming that probably at least 50 % of people listening right now don't even know that term. yes.

Both overwhelming but also kind of sexy because you're like, ooh, this sounds shiny. Maybe this will save my life.

Jake Kastleman (06:55.766)
So this is going to change everything, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Let's start. Yeah. Let me back up and kind of give the main structures. Cause my passion is the brain. So that's one thing that actually would be good to know about me. If you know nothing about me, one, I'm a CSAT certified sex addiction therapist. I think that's really important because in, in our field, I think that's the, that is the gold standard, right? Dr. Patrick Carnes is in his eighties now and he's literally written the book on recovery, rewritten the book on addiction recovery. Quite frankly, he wrote the book on sexual addiction recovery, but in doing so

all of his research and the way that he conceptualizes recovery based on the neuroscience of the brain and how the brain changes in recovery. think he has rewritten the book from the old school models of just classic chemical dependency recovery, like with the Hazelden model and such. It's transformed the addiction recovery world in my opinion. So I'm a CSAT. I think that's important. I trained under Dr. Patrick Harns and then

Maybe even more importantly is I'm a brain guy, man. So, you know, I worked with Dr. Carnes directly for about five, six years on a multimillion dollar study called the Fulbright study looking for the genetic link for sex addiction. So I was one of six research sites in the country. And, and that's my passion, man, is, is, is learning about the brain and studying the brain, understand the brain, not just with regards to how addiction affects the brain. I think that's been, you know, a growing passion in the field, but

I, for me, it's, it's even further upstream, which is like, how does the brain, how do we understand the brain recovering from addiction and really getting healthy and whole and optimal functioning in long-term recovery? Does that make sense? I'm just fascinated by like, what actually changes the brain?

Jake Kastleman (08:36.3)
Yeah, so, Me too.

Okay, just quit. I think I can do it pretty quickly

Hey, quick or not, I love to talk about the brain as well. This is my bread and butter, so. Cool.

Well, so I grabbed my brain from across the room so I didn't have to go grab it. So this is my, my quick brain model. know if you have anyone that's, don't know if this is video or audio, but I'm going to talk both ways. Yeah. So, uh, there's three primary structures in the brain, right? The brain, the first, the first thing they know is the brain begins wiring electrically around five, six, seven weeks in utero. so, but for the first simplicity sake, we'll say that the brain wires electrically from birth to about 25, 26 years old. And it wires from the bottom of the brain in the spinal cord.

you

Chris Chandler (09:18.294)
actually Dan Siegel talks about how there's brain cells in the heart and the gut. And that really the first electrical wiring we see is really in the heart literally. And then it begins wiring into the spinal cord, up through the brainstem and then into the top parts of the brain. but for our sake today, we'll just say that, you know, brainstem is the bottom part of the brain. This is roughly zero to about nine years old is where this is most robustly wiring. And so, you know, you think of like infancy young childhood, you know, it's, it's a lot of like,

This controls mostly, mostly bodily functions. you're, you're looking at like, you know, how does the, you know, balance coordination, heart rate, respirations, you know, body temperature, blood pressure, like this is controlling most of the autonomic functions in the, the body. that make sense? And so that, that's all kind of taking place. I think of this like the child brain, right? The, youngest part of the brain. Then you have the limbic system, the teenage brain, the mid brain, right? So this is where addiction is, is housed, right? Pleasure reward center, fight, flight, freeze. This is also where.

Emotion is most robustly happening with the amygdala memory with the hippocampus. So you've got a lot of like, basically we'll call it the teenage brain and it's roughly, you know, 10 to like say 16, 17 years old is when this is mostly electrically wiring. It's not that nothing's happening here in the child years. That makes sense. Like there's one happening on all levels. being overly simplified here, but child brain, teenage brain, and then adult brain.

The cortex is the part that you see in pictures that wraps around the brain and then as it wraps fully around the prefrontal cortex is the very last part of the brain to finish wiring. And that's roughly coming online, really most robustly around 16, 17 years old and finishes around 25, 26 years old. So that makes sense. Kind of the three main building blocks of the brain.

So before that we're just mindless idiots and then we finally become adults with some sort of sensibility.

Chris Chandler (11:13.048)
That's the plan. Yeah. But unfortunately what happened for a lot of us is that we, you know, in teenage years, you know, when we started firing dopamine and limbic activity excessively over a long period of time, there's a, there's a book called biology of desire by Mark Lewis. And he talks about how what we see in the spec scans of the brain is that when you over activate the limbic system, when this is lit up like a Christmas tree, what starts happening in the prefrontal cortex is it shuts down electrical function in the prefrontal cortex. Right. So.

It's almost like it creates this ceiling right here at the bottom of the, of the adult brain and top of the limbic teenage brain. And this part of the top part of the brain goes dark and we're just not in our prefrontal cortex. And so the problem for a lot of, lot of men and women, work primarily with men. I say, I speak to men a lot, but for as people is that we started developing these coping strategies, which sorry, I'm all over the place, but

But yeah

Chris Chandler (12:06.422)
A lot of that was based on pain that we experienced in zero to nine, right? So a lot of our story is, is attachment rooted and this is nonverbal, preverbal. We're not, we don't have a lot of cognitive thought in the bottom part of our brain, as well as in the right side of our brain, which is, these are the places where most trauma and pain, you know, gets lodged into the brain. This is like Bessel van der Kolk's book, Body Keeps the Score. So we get stuck in our attachment wounds.

And so the child's in pain and we find these coping strategies. find, know, this brain, the pleasure reward center comes online and it's like, Oh man, this feels awesome. Right. Like, and this is something that Dan Siegel talks about in his book, brainstorm with the teenage brain. It's like teenagers have a different limbic system than adults. Right. Like you put a 14 year old in a Tesla and me and, you know, we were both sitting in this new Tesla and we're both going to, you know, floor it and go 140 on the freeway. His brain is lit up like a Christmas, like his limbic.

system is going crazy. And this is just a normal teenage brain, right? Because this is the time when that part of the brain's coming online. But for you and I sitting in that car, it's both cool. Like this is really exciting. We get that, you know, adrenaline rush, endorphins. But we also have a prefrontal cortex that says, Hey man, I got crap to do tomorrow. Like let's keep it under a hundred, right? Like let's be safe, right? Cause we have this break pedal versus like the teenager has all gas and no break.

and honestly i'm talking

think that's wonderful. It's such an awesome covering of how the brain develops and all these different areas. And one of the things that I thought of as you were saying that, Chris, is how I feel like in my teenage years, just like you're saying, my brain would light up like a Christmas tree when I would do things that were thrilling. And, I did drugs and alcohol and all sorts of different risky behaviors and things. And it was just...

Jake Kastleman (13:55.438)
things were so thrilling. And I remember when I got into my twenties, especially mid twenties and then thirties, life becomes deeper, more meaningful, but it's not so, at least for me, it's not so that raw thrill. I don't think I feel as much. And I think I needed to grieve that for a while. Like, don't know what, and I often wondered what's wrong with me. Why don't I feel so excited like I used to?

You know, just really viscerally excited. And I think that's part of growing up. I mean, am I correct in saying that?

So well said, man. It's so beautiful. Yeah. And I love like, went to school with Jay Stringer who wrote a book called Unwanted and he talks about, yeah, six experiences that kind of keep us stuck. And one was futility. One is like that feeling that like, man, I'm just not, you know, where I want to be. I, and I love you use the word grieving. Like, I think so many of us, that is an appropriate transition in life where we're, and so biochemically we're moving away from dopamine as a primary driver and more into oxytocin.

Was this... One ex-

Chris Chandler (15:00.396)
which oxytocin is really produced in the hypothalamus, the bottom part of the brain, but it's regulated in the top part of the brain, prefrontal cortex, the adult brain. So, and that's that like warm, slow burn of connection. And, and so we're getting to vent, Polyvago in a moment because that also shows up in Polyvago theory. But yeah, we're learning how to not be driven by the, the, always describe it like the kindling of the brain.

And instead we're learning how to develop the coals of the brain. If we're talking fire analogy here, right? So dopamine, I always think of like kindling. Like if I'm freezing, I can throw kindling on it and it'll, it'll blow, it'll burn fast and hot, but it goes out fast and hot. Right. And so at that transitional period you're talking about, as we're moving up into the prefrontal cortex, it's like, can I learn to slow down and experience some of the like boring moments of life? I still experience meaning and connection.

And contentment really, like can I experience solitude and presence and that's hard, man, especially if we didn't have a model for that, you know, either in our primary attachment figures or our peer groups. that's a brutal season. That's when I went offline and just went into my addictions because it was like, screw it, you know, I'm, I'm going to double down on my limbic, my teenage brain, right? Rather than grow up and be a man.

And you feel like that's kind of the answer, at least it was for me when I was, you know, in my late teenage years, early twenties, it was like, well, whatever I can do to just feel happy, right? In other words, just pursue the pleasure, like really get this, get my hit, right? And it's, like you said, it's fast to light up and fast to burn out. I'm not sure if that's the word you used, but.

Yeah. And so it's just this roller coaster, right? Of highs and lows. then in moving to, you know, I often say to, said to multiple clients, what we're pursuing with pornography is this peak pleasure, right? How high can I peak my pleasure with no responsibility or risk on my end or risk of rejection or anything like that ultimate peak and

Jake Kastleman (17:16.724)
I have to work with clients and I'm sure you've done the same in actually grieving pornography and the addiction. so every, every, you know, every guy says, grieve what? Like it's ruined my life, but this is your companion. This is something that you've grown so attached to both the pleasure of it and the pain of it as J. Stringer talks about. And you have to, you have to go through a grieving process because you're moving. If you choose to leave this behind.

you're moving more and more into a life of meaning and purpose and peace or that slow burn you're like, like you're talking about and you're going to leave behind these peaks. That's you're going to have good times. You can be happy, but it's not ever going to be like that again. That's hard. know?

It's so beautiful, man. It's so well said. Yeah. And it's scary and we don't know how to do that. We don't know how to feel those kinds of feelings and, you know, stepping into law, stepping into loneliness, stepping into like, you know, this, like these natural feelings, it's just so much easier to turn back to what we know. Right. We, there's a saying in AA, we develop solutions to a problem. The problem is our pain, right. but the solutions became the problem that those solutions created more pain. And so to your point, man, I mean, letting go of that, that binky is Drew Boa describes it or like,

You know, this, this comfort blanket is, is scary. It's, it's uncomfortable. It's painful. And it's also a quick plug. It's also why I think we need people around us to be able to support us through that. Right. We need, you know, someone else to cling to. when we're learning to let go of that thing, that's, you know, got us to this point.

Well, let's dive into Polyvagal theory, these three different states and all the other kind of basics of how it functions.

Chris Chandler (19:03.5)
Yeah, well, thanks for letting me do that quick intro on the brain because when we talk about the nervous system, it's kind of tricky, right? Like I basically just gave you maybe like the structural format of the brain and how it's built. And then within that, you have the wiring system. So maybe you could think of like what we just talked about is like the gears. This analogy is going to break down, but, then maybe the nervous system is kind of the wiring or the fuels or I don't know. Yeah.

think it's coming again. There's something there.

But in the same way that there's a kind of what Dan Siegel calls the triune brain, we have these three primary structures of the structures of the brain. We also have a triune nervous system. The nervous system is really kind of built with three main parts, right? So as you mentioned, you've got this, the, at the bottom of the ladder, so to speak, in polyvagal theory, by the way, poly just to break this down. So it's not as, you know, foreign or abstract or overwhelming poly means many, right?

And the Vegas nerve is, you know, is what Stephen Porges is the founder, the creator of Polyvagal Theory. And he was looking at the Vegas nerve and how it runs. There's two branches of the Vegas nerve. runs in the one, one branch runs down the front of your body and the other one runs in the back. Both of them come down through the neck. This is my, you know, layman's terms here, but.

Ventral means front and dorsal means back or bottom. so, you know, so when we talk about polyvagal, we're looking at the many, the, the several branches of the vagus nerve, right? Front and back. so, so even in the polyvagal, have the dorsal vagus, dorsal vagal, part of the nervous system. and then we'll get into the ventral vagal, as well. And in between that we've got sympathetic response. So, so here's the three primary things of polyvagal theory. You've got,

Chris Chandler (21:05.786)
the dorsal vagal shutdown, right? This anytime we're in dorsal vagal, we're, basically dropping into that fight flight freeze bottom part of the brain. This is like where we're going offline. There's, this shows up a lot of different ways, but we're, it can be shown experiences like dissociation. this is like in that freeze state, we are just under activated. yeah, it's, it's like the most primitive part of survival. Go ahead.

It's the shutdown, right? Like one of the things that I think of is, um, we as men, especially when we struggled with addiction, we can be prone, you know, if I'm in a conflict with my wife and emotions are heightened, there's a lot of anger and you know, we're just blown up. And then there's the feeling of just like immense shame in this shutdown and just, I'm not even going to engage in checking out. I'm not emotionally present at all. That's what strikes me kind of as dorsal vagal. Um,

Zone, would that be correct?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll get into it with, with acting out like pornography, but it's actually like what's dorsal. I heard it said one time, if you don't find a solution to your sympathetic arousal states, you're going to go dorsal, meaning you're going to go act out. And when you act out, you're basically, you're, chasing that dorsal dive. You're basically chasing that numbed out state because you don't know how to deal with a sympathetic response. So let me, let me talk about what sympathetic is, right? Sympathetic activation, but.

Basically when you're looking at porn or acting out, you're trying to create a synthetic dorsal dive. You're basically trying to numb out pain, right?

Jake Kastleman (22:40.28)
I have never heard anybody put it that way actually. That's fascinating. You're chasing that dive. Yeah, cause most people, think we'd think of it as like a stimulation and excitement kind of thing, but you're saying that we're seeking to just turn off the sensation.

It's too overwhelming for the brain. So I know that we're pleasure seeking for sure. So let's talk about sympathetic and where it starts, but ultimately, right? We're wanting to just, we want to be offline. We want to be not, we don't want to feel all that activation, right?

Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. these, so, okay. So we have these two states, right? Sympathetic and then dorsal vagal.

Yeah, so the next rung on the ladder so I'm starting at the bottom with dorsal vagal, right? Yeah, if you're getting chased by a tiger, right? It's just like that, know, it's fight or flight, right? And it's like I'm gonna try and run as fast as I can but I cannot run the tiger So the dorsal is just like okay last last ditch effort. We just go we play dead We we go down we collapse. Mm-hmm

Sympathetic response is, when I see the tiger and I'm like, holy crap, you know, I got to get out of here. And so, you know, our first attempt is to run. so sympathetic, by the way, sympathetic, sympathetic in Latin, really means to elevate escalate. So anytime we're in a sympathetic response, we're, going up into, up into an activated state. was just kind of crossing my wires here because we have a sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system, but.

Chris Chandler (24:11.342)
Parasympathetic response is really what dorsal dive is, right? It's where everything drops out, bottoms out, right? The opposite of that is when everything's moving up in a sympathetic state. So heart rate goes up, blood pressure goes up, body temperature goes up, respirations go up. Everything is escalating and elevating in the nervous system, right? And sympathetic responses, anytime we're in pain, you know, I'm scared, I'm overwhelmed. Sympathetic responses, you know, also pleasure seeking. So it can be pleasurable and painful, right?

It's that escalation, elevation of adrenaline, norepinephrine, dopamine. I mean, it's quite a neural cocktail that happens there. Again, a lot of sympathetic responses happening in the limbic system for sure, which is why I want to just make sure we understood kind of biochemically which parts of the brain are getting activated when I'm in a sympathetic response.

That actually, so what that makes me think of is the craving state when we're escalating and escalating and I'm overwhelmed with the craving and the desire for pornography and it's overtaking my body. Some people will start shaking, right? Would that be kind of a sympathetic date?

Yeah. Yeah. It's also in healthy ways, like just to be really clear, like on all these, like God created our brain, our nervous system to reflect his beauty, his goodness, his glory, in my opinion. so, and it shows up a million different ways and everything's on a continuum. And so like, just to give you an idea right now, like you are somewhere on that ladder and I am probably more in sympathetic than I would prefer in this moment, right? I'm having...

Because I'm so passionate and I care about the stuff, right? And I know I have a limited window and I didn't probably prep as well as I could have. so I'm just, I'm probably firehosing your listeners here, but, and so I'm probably a little bit too much in sympathetic in this very moment and not enough in ventral. And so we'll talk about how to get into ventral and how to breathe and kind of reset and can be grounded because when we're in a sympathetic response, we're really not.

Chris Chandler (26:10.446)
going to be able to connect as well to other human beings. know, we're in a survival state of sorts. So let me just take a ventral breath here and let you.

Right. That's what I was going to say. We could do a little box breathing or some breath work here for a minute. Yeah. I actually in each, at the beginning of each session I do with clients, I just do a brief. I don't, I'm sure there's a term for it, but it's four seconds in the nose, eight seconds out the mouth. And I'll do that for several rounds. And it's, it's so calming. It's so focusing very calm for the nervous system. That, that helps so much, so much. Yeah.

So the ventral vagus state, do we want to move into that next and helping people understand what that is? So it's not dorsal vagal, know, shut down, checked out kind of, I almost think of it as like a helplessness state. that associated with the dorsal vagal? Is that associated with that?

That's why I love, that's why I tried to show you the building, like the ladder of the brain, because, yes, when we're in dorsal, we're shutting down and it's the child brain. It's the helpless part. It's like, we're literally collapsing onto the floor. know, if there was a tiger or just a scary narcissistic mom, we're just, we can't get, can't get my needs met. Right. And so it's like, well, Gabor Mate talks a lot about this. Like if I have a parent that's not seeing me, it's like, I try and.

express my hurt, my anger, my frustration, but I get shut down. so eventually I stopped fighting. just, I just kind of like collapse in. Right. so that's the door's hole shut down. Right. We just go out for a walk.

Jake Kastleman (27:48.162)
And what I, so this is one of the things I was thinking is, I feel like for the entirety of my childhood and my teenage years and up into my early twenties, I was so frequently and sympathetic, you know, and I dropped into dorsal bagel and I'd just go between those so, so often. mean, it was, it was, I had so much anxiety and social anxiety. like, I just, I felt it when I was alone. I felt it when I was with people, was just always anxious.

And that, that was my life. You know, I didn't actually know that other, that I felt that way or that other people didn't just feel that way all the time until in my early twenties, when I started to study psychology and get to know some things and, you know, studied social anxiety as well. And I realized, oh my gosh, I experienced this all the time. Other people don't experience this. What? You know, and so just always in that sympathetic, very

I was saying earlier is that so porn became, I mean, it's so funny because we think of it mostly as an activator because it's so exciting and stimulating, but you, you hit it on the spot. It's like, I'm in a red line state with my anxiety and I found something that's pleasurable that matches that state. But it's almost like you need to match the RPMs in the car. And then the porn actually like is the thing that is the brake pedal that actually brings it down into the dorsal. That's the thing that calms your anxiety down, right?

So, and it's almost like it's kind of a substitute or a fabrication, I feel like, of trying to enter ventral vagal, perhaps. I'm, you know, but I think of it that way. We're trying to do that, but it's very unsuccessfully.

Yeah, and to sort of be clear and make sure I'm not oversimplifying this, porn is actually hitting all three parts of the nervous system. You're creating a sympathetic ventral connection with others. It happens to be a two-dimensional screen and no connection at all, but it's an attempt at that. It's obviously highly arousing and pleasure seeking, but it also numbs us out ultimately. So it's the full cocktail, right? So it's not like, it's not the dorsal lever is what I'm saying. It's just.

Chris Chandler (29:54.318)
But I do think that that is kind of ultimately the core is like, just want to, we want to shut that down, but we also want to connect with a human being and we don't know how to do that. So a screen's a lot safer and easier. So.

Well, and I was, I was actually listening to Drew's, Drew Beaux podcast the other day. had a Dr. Anna Lemke on there and she was talking about how, you know, pornography or, or she was talking about social media, but pornography, could, you know, say the same thing about it, which is it plays right into our, need for human relationships and connection. One of the reasons it's so insidiously addictive because it's playing into my, my deep need for connection and my sexual, my sexuality, right.

So two of my most primary aspects of who I am as a human being, they're always gonna be there. It's never gonna go away, right? And so, you know, with something like drugs, very difficult to overcome, but I don't need drugs, but I definitely need human connection and sexuality is always going to be a part of me, right?

Yeah, it's been said in some essay circles that sexual acting out is like being a crack addict with a crack pipe attached to your body. It's like, it's a whole different beast, man.

yes, it's true. I, and I make that same analogy.

Chris Chandler (31:08.472)
So I was speaking to the dorsal, we talked about sympathetic and obviously the pleasure seeking and the dopamine. mean, that's pretty well talked about these days in these circles, right? But yeah, ultimately what we're moving towards is that ventral vagal, which if we're just looking at the ladder here, right? So if you ever see a poly, you can just Google polyvagal theory and if you look at the images on that, you'll see they often use a ladder. And so you've got at the bottom, the dorsal, then you've got sympathetic and then at the time they don't.

associated with the brain, but are you with me? Can you see how this maps over the lens over the top of the brain structures we just talked about?

Yes, I believe so, yes.

Okay. So ventral vagal is kind of the adult brain. It's prefrontal cortex. so, yep. That's the structure of the brain. Yeah. Sorry. I'm, I know I'm a lot of concepts on here, but I trust that these days. Yeah. People are, you guys are all brilliant, you know, with the internet. so the other term that we use a lot with ventral vagal, is social engagement. part of the brain. And again, this is happening from a structural standpoint in the top part of the adult.

the prefrontal cortex.

Jake Kastleman (31:57.059)
NUS

Chris Chandler (32:13.326)
prefrontal cortex brain. yeah, when we're in ventral, so from a nervous system perspective, the ventral vagus nerve travels down the front side of the body and it really connects with every major organ, know, heart, lungs, gut, and honestly, both extend all the way down to the genitals, right? So, you know, this is, that is the bottom of the door. The vagus nerve is the genitals, both front and back. So just to be aware there, right? This is, you know,

all connected as part of the system. But when we talk about ventral vagal, for the most part, we're talking about like the in the front side, the ability for the top part of the brain and the body to experience deep bonding and connection, right? It is where oxytocin is happening. I'm talking about a lot. I'm talking about just to be clear here, we're talking about brain structure, nervous system and neurochemistry, like the neurochemicals in the brain and

And I know that it's complex, I don't think you can just talk about polyvagal theory without also understanding where that's happening, where it's lighting up in the brain and what neurochemicals are being released in that experience, right?

Yes, 100%. So let's talk about specifically Ventral Vagal and more about that state and how it works, what it incorporates.

Yeah, well again, so I mean that ventral vagus nerve travels down the front of the body and really connects with all key organs in the body. so the beautiful thing about this polyvagal theory is that we are not victims to our nervous system, right? We're not victims to our circumstance. Like we actually have a lot of autonomy and control over that. And so we can, we can re-regulate when our nervous system is getting out of whack. one of the most important things about that, Patrick Karn said one time,

Chris Chandler (34:00.526)
We can't do what we want until we know what we do. And I just love that line because until I know where I'm at, right. A moment ago, I said, man, I'm kind of in my sympathetic nervous system, right? I'd say 60 % sympathetic, maybe 40 % ventral. And so it's like, okay, I want to get 60 % into ventral, 40 % of the sympathetic. I want to like bring down the sympathetic, turn that down. And the way that I can do that is that I can really, instead of trying to get out of sympathetic, we want to get into ventral vagal.

Does that make sense? And so we want to breathe into these places where we're in, where our system is in distress. And the beautiful thing is we can, like we can have a lot of impact, right?

And is this very much embodiment practices are a key part of this?

my gosh, yeah. Well, what do you mean by that when you say that like?

So breath work, being deeply attuned to what I'm feeling in the body, dance, movement, things of that nature.

Chris Chandler (35:02.37)
Yeah, beautiful. Yeah. The more we can get into our body, which again, ironically, like when we're acting out, we're really going offline and getting out of our body. We're not attentive, attuned, you know, connected to our body. so yeah, it's really like the breath work is, is probably the easiest lowest hanging fruit of, of how to re-regulate. not just, really it regulates heart rate cause it slows the heart rate down is a big part of it, right? We're really trying to like slow.

the system down and yeah, for me, I like to put my hands on my heart. We're trying to match heart rate with respiration. So it's, you know, there's a lot of different forms of box breathing, like four count, five count. There's a book James Nestor wrote called breath. And he says the optimal breath is five and a half seconds in five and a half seconds out. There's a lot, you'll see a lot of these different numbers in different places, right? And depending on what you're looking for, but I think the most important

is that I'm counting four or five on my heartbeats. That's the count. Is that I'm counting my heartbeats and trying to match my respiration with my heart rate. That lines up that HRV and it slow, it really calms the whole nervous system down.

That's so interesting. I, so things that I've read is it's important to have a longer out breath than an in breath because that's bringing you more into parasympathetic versus sympathetic, which is not to be confused with what we're talking about here with polyvagal states, but that's what I've been told.

Totally 1000%. So yeah, most like good box breathing, think does a longer exhale than inhale. And, even James Nestor talks about the importance of the exhale and how critical that is. All I'm trying to say there is actually that like, the more you read on the internet, the more you see, I'm just saying some will do four, four, eight breathing, you know, some will do five in five out. I'm saying it honestly, if you're just being mindful of your breath and you're slowing it down and you're, and you're trying to regulate it, that's.

Chris Chandler (36:59.032)
where I think the power is not about four seconds or five seconds for this and that out. I think it's really more just about mindfully being aware of your body and your breath.

Well, so I started Wim Hof breathing. I've been doing it every day for probably consistently the last year, but I started about three years ago. I've taken a couple of breaks and things like that here and there, but it has, it has helped me so much. one to kind of tolerate, tolerate stress better, right? To be more present and calm under stress because you're

You're, you're voluntarily hyperventilating essentially when you do Wim Hof, right? And then you're, and then you're expelling your breath and you're not breathing for a full minute or minute and half or more if you can do more. And so that's beneficial. But what I've been practicing, especially the last few months is just, I really want to learn more about how to get present with my body sensations and what I'm feeling in my body and with my breath.

Throughout my life, it's just, you know, my mind, I'm always thinking, thinking, thinking words and thoughts and constant, right? And so practicing that embodiment. so one of the things that's actually helped me is doing workouts with, I used to listen to audio books and podcasts and stuff during my workouts every single time. And I didn't realize how I was kind of 50%, you know, taking in knowledge.

which is great, but 50 % doing that and then 50 % with my body. And I've been practicing now, this is only the last few weeks, just putting it all away and just being present with the movement, my muscles, my body, my breath, very focused on that. And that, I looked up some research that was done on this actually. When we practice embodiment and we learned how to do that, it

Jake Kastleman (39:03.864)
builds our ability, our capacity for interoception, right? So the ability to sense the internal states of the body, which then actually enables me to feel more empathy, to be more emotionally engaged and to have a greater sense of identity. And only in a few weeks, I've started to experience some enhancement in those areas, but I didn't realize, I then saw that research and I was like, my gosh, that's what I'm experiencing.

It's so powerful. It's so simple, right? But it's so powerful just being in the body with the body, with the breath. So this is one of the ways to, yeah, go ahead.

man.

Chris Chandler (39:47.222)
No, I'm just, I just affirm like that, that is beautiful. And, I love it. And, and what's fascinating too, is that when you, the more connected you get to your body, even as you're sharing that Jake, I'll just be, you know, candid is that now it's lighting up to like my social engagement of like, yeah, that, that gets me excited. And I feel compassion and love for you and I feel excited for what you're doing. It's like, I want more of that. And so.

This is where it starts like the interplay of both the interception and the neuroception of like, you know, the co-regulation that we're like, you are more self-regulated in yourself, which helps me feel more drawn in and feel more connected to you. this is what a lot of us did not get from our parents.

Right. Yes. We're so easily distracted. Right?

Gosh. Yeah. And I mentioned on the front of the call, my workaholic mind is similar to what you're describing. It's like, well, information is going to be the transformation, right? But it's like, no, Surrendering some of the information, really getting, getting more connected. I'm with you, man. I, I started running probably like three months ago without audio and it was like, there's birds actually awake at five in the morning. I didn't know that. You know, it's like, I started hearing sounds.

Yes, because there's the, it's like the chase, right? I felt like I've been in this race my whole life of I got to catch up. I'm falling behind. I need to learn more. You know, I have to go faster. You know, I have to become more capable and all this. it's that what's interesting is pulling out of that race to whatever degree and just being like, look, I know I have things I want to learn, but, to be frank, my body deserves my attention.

Jake Kastleman (41:31.256)
to think of my body as, I've started to think of it as like an individual, like someone I have a relationship with. And it's like, would it be a caring relationship for me to really, you know, just halfway pay attention to someone all the time or to actually fully be there for them at certain times of the day and like, like, hey, I'm here, like we're together. And that, you know, I feel like I'm getting,

rewarded for that in spades, know, and just like my body's fine, like, thank you. Yes. Thank you for seeing me and thank you for, you know, which is a totally different way to think about the body. Cause we think like I am my body, but the more I do this, I'm learning like, no, like I have a relationship with my body.

That's so beautiful, man. It, it, it'd be curious too, just for your listeners to check in and notice, you know, when I am like the first part of this podcast, first part of our time together, as I'm blasting you with information to notice like what your nervous system is doing versus when we kind of like you and I, Jake, slow down, when you slow down, thanks for leading me in that, and just kind of breathe and get into your body. And then, you know, now we are more connected. It's like, I can feel that. Like everyone around you can feel that right. As you kind of slow down.

And so what a gift, not just to yourself, but to people that you're in relationship with. And again, you're just, there's more presence and more connection. And does it mean that the first part of the podcast or the first that all the information is bad? It's like, of course not like this information is really helpful, but I love it's really that gas break, right? And kind of being able to self-regulate of, I speeding up and getting too far into my left brain and thinking too much? Am I slowing down enough?

Do I need to speed back up and get more in that sympathetic state? Because I love the excitement, passionate state. love reading. I love learning. love growing. love, you know, so there's, it's not, neither are bad. It's just knowing like where I'm at and, am I making a value-based decision in this moment of how, how I'm connecting with myself and others.

Jake Kastleman (43:26.914)
Yeah, exactly. And I think one of the other things that I've experienced, and I'm sure you can speak to this is, I feel like my mind has quieted somewhat, right? Through this, just these, you know, setting aside time and along with this, and I'm doing a 30 day challenge right now. And some people, you know, decided to be involved in that as well and do it with me, listeners and clients and things, but.

30 day challenges. No, actually, this is just this is just my own thing. But yes, November is the no porn November, right? So ironically enough, this is this is about presence and embodiment. So the challenge is two hours a day in the in the morning and two hours at night. Put your put all electronics away, put your smartphone away, no distractions, none of this back and forth and checking messages and scrolling video, any of that. Just put it away.

And then an optional portion of it is the workouts with no audio at all. And so I'm, I'm doing both those things and that, my clients are doing it too. They've experienced amazing things in a really short period of time, just a few weeks, right. And just feeling more present and feeling more regulated and you know, feeling less cravings and just they're like, wow, all I do is, know, on my drive to work, instead of listening to stuff, I just.

I just listen, you I'm just present. I just sit, I pray, you know, I breathe. just let, you know, be with my thoughts, be with the moment. And my gosh, I mean, I think I've been coming out of this tunnel in a lot of ways. And, and, and I consider myself, you know, less extreme than what a lot of us go through. Cause I already thought I was doing, doing really well. And I'm like, I've been in this tunnel of just, you know, this back and forth between my phone and the work and the productivity and all this.

When I am productive now, I have more focus, I have more attention. And when I am creating material or content or things like that, feel like things are more clear, ideas are more clear, things come more easily. Where I thought that it was all about, well, I gotta be thinking about this all the time and ideating all the time and learning all this stuff all the time. And when you're just in this, what would be sympathetic kind of state all the time.

Jake Kastleman (45:49.09)
then you're not very effective, you know? Yeah. But that's what the world says is just productivity 100 % of the time, you know? Always.

No. No.

Chris Chandler (45:58.958)
One of my favorite affirmations in Workaholics Anonymous says, the slower I go, the faster I grow. And I just think that's so, so beautiful. that's, speaks to what you're talking about there. And, and yeah, just to be clear too, when you're in ventral vagal and when you're in prefrontal, um, just to give you some more infom information here, Dan Siegel says the domains of the prefrontal cortex and

But a lot of it is this, feel calm, you feel compassionate, you feel connected to others, right? We're also talking about the eight C's with, Inter-affecting systems, right? That when we're in true self, that is our experience, right? So everything you're describing, man, it's like, you're, you're, you're surrendering a lot of these things that drive sympathetic response and limbic activity. It's exciting to feel like you're learning and, and, and dude, I'm like, I mean, real time, bro, like that is like my crack of choice. Right.

You know, from porn to Reese's Pieces to like audio books, right? And I just, so I'm with you, man, real time, man. It's just like learning to surrender that and let go of that. And really that's about trust. And like, your point is grieving. Like, what if I don't know everything? What if I don't, you know, it's like, what if I just like give myself permission to be in this moment and just, you know, like genuine love and connection with Jake on this call right now?

man. That's beautiful. It's beautiful. And one of the things I found fascinating kind of through that IFS lens, right? If we talk about, the dorsal sympathetic and ventral, right? Ventral is that state of, I would say higher self or just self, right? That it's referred to in, IFS. And then the sympathetic is more kind of manager state, right? And then dorsal vagal would be more firefighter state. I suppose it of depends though. that's right.

So sympathetic is more the protective, right? So firefighter or manager, and then exile would be the dorsal. That, yeah, that checks out.

Chris Chandler (48:00.44)
So that's at the beginning of the call when you wanted to talk about Polly. And I just, I think people like know so much now these days with all these different theories. think one of the beautiful things for me that I'm seeing is the integration of all these, like they're all really speaking the same thing. That's all I was really trying to bring is like, dude, if we just put like layer upon layer, you can kind of start seeing like, man, these we're all like, it's all describing and, revealing kind of the same experiences in these different things. They're not all in.

disintegrated and disconnected, right? They're so, they're all overlapped and integrated. So that for me is just so beautiful. Like the tapestry of that and seeing how they're connected and so.

Yes, 100%. I love that. So, getting more kind of specific about examples, right? So, and how to apply this to day-to-day life. What are a couple of these kind of triggers, either biological or relational or emotional that would push us into these fight, flight free states? And then how do we come into ventral vagal and more of that.

higher self, know, values-based calm state.

Yeah. Well, I think you've done a really beautiful job, Jake, like just kind of outlining your self-awareness, like your attempt to really like study your pattern, your cycle, your, your, your, uh, yeah, like where you are like less regulated and where you're trying to get more regulated. So I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of examples we could give, but I think I would just really encourage it, you know,

Chris Chandler (49:38.186)
each of us to be like paying attention, right? When am I, like I was doing on the, on the show earlier, it's like, when am I feeling my heart rate escalating? What are those triggers? Like you said, for me in this moment, right? This idea like, man, I want so bad for people to, to, to get good information. want to, I want to bring value. I want to be of help. And so that, even though it's a good thing can drive me into maybe a less healthy place, right?

I actually, you just queued this for me, that I think is something that's very meaningful, which is you talked about your level of care and desire to make a difference for people. I think so frequently we can get caught up in the fear or the tension that we feel, the stress that we feel, and feeling like, what's wrong with me and why do I feel this way and why am I so stressed out and I have to make it go away? Where the core,

Right. So I experienced this in my content a lot. Like I'll get kind of the procrastination thing. Like I'm going to move into this happened with my last podcast episode, which was about these experiences actually that I'm talking about. They're really deeply meaningful to me. And I'm like, I want to share these with people and I really want it to hit home and help people. And that almost, it drives kind of this tension and this desire to kind of control and do it all perfect. And then this procrastination thing I'll go through of like,

not quite wanting to dive in because I want to do it just right. And if I'm able to just get attuned and I, you know, I use IFS every day, all day, I just love it so much. Getting attuned with those parts and saying, hey, I'm here, tell me about what you're going through so I can recognize that. And I can appreciate, you know, the parts of me that are kind of trying to show up as managers to control all that and, you know, make sure I do everything right. The core intent, right, these parts of me is I've gotten to know them.

They want to make a difference. They want to live a meaningful life, be a good person, achieve and accomplish. And I can actually appreciate those parts. Instead of getting caught up in the surface level stress, like, thank you for trying to show up and you really want great things for me and my life and the people around me. It's so beautiful. And just getting in touch with the core intent because that, that I feel like that's the truth. That's the real underlying truth is.

Jake Kastleman (51:59.458)
We want good things. The kind of the half truth or the lies like you are your fear and it's bad for you to feel this way and right.

Yeah, that is so well said. And let me try and reflect back without getting too wordy on that. That the goal of all of this is integration, right? So the goal is not, cause I think this is where our left brain manager parts say, okay, dorsal bad, ventral good, don't go to dorsal, go to ventral. the difficulty with that and the beauty of this that I think.

Paul, this is probably the thing I love most about polyvagal theory is that the goal is not to just never go to dorsal, never go to sympathetic. It's like, designed these systems for our good. Right. And even as I was saying earlier, I'm in a sympathetic state, but that's not, I'm not getting chased by a tiger. I'm trying to bring my passion. And if anything, the fear is like that. I wouldn't bring it enough or I wouldn't bring it clearly enough or whatever. so the irony is that the, you know, my, my desire for beauty and goodness.

is actually causing a stress state, right? But it's not that I don't want to get into that state. Here's the kicker is we want to integrate our ventral into sympathetic. We want to integrate our ventral into dorsal, which is the same as IFS, which is I don't want to get rid of my exiles or my protectors. I want to bring true self into a connection, a loving relationship with these parts and help them really flourish, right? I want my passion to be both

turned up and, full of life and energy as I'm, as I'm bringing this. But I also, it has to be regulated and not just like spinning out of control. Otherwise I'm going to lose everyone that I'm, are the very people that I'm wanting to connect with. Right. So it's this infusion of true self of eventual into sympathetic, into protective parts. Right. That is, that is where there, there's like this synergistic effect, right. Where we actually really experienced the greatest.

Chris Chandler (54:00.046)
passion, intimacy, connection with others. So hopefully that's helpful.

It's fantastic. And it's so interesting to just consider, you know, for me, I use the terms, the mental mind and the emotional mind, which there's, could put it in all sorts of frameworks, but they play by different rules, right? I may know something mentally and think, well, it's not logical for me to be stressed about this. Your emotional mind doesn't, this doesn't register for your emotional mind. That's not, it plays by a different set of rules. And so my,

path or kind of what I need to do is not to think my way through it. It's to feel my way through it. And IFS has really taught me how to do this, this practice each day of, look, that part of me feels what it feels. It's stressed out about work or it feels like I need to be productive 100 % of the time, or I've got this craving coming up for masturbation, right? And just, well, why am I feeling this? It's there, man. So.

Let's move toward it. Seek to understand it. Be present with it. You know, I use the term self-empathy, right? You can actually empathize with these parts. You just, I'm in this pain with you right now. Let me feel this with you. I want to understand you. And that, being able to do that is very different than, well, okay, how do I think my way around this? Or how do I just be positive or ignore this or

These thoughts don't need to be here, right? This, all these kind of manager or firefighter strategies that we'll use, which ultimately just fuel addiction. When this part of me just needs to be heard. It's what we all want, just to be heard, to be understood, you know, to feel compassion.

Chris Chandler (55:52.76)
So beautiful, man. Yeah. And it's, it's a little counterintuitive, right? We're just so used to wearing that. we grew up in a Western culture and in a modern culture where, you know, it's, it's everything's binary either or, either this is good or it's bad. And it's like, now those categories are just not helpful. It's both and.

And that's actually, it's so funny because, you know, I have this part of me I call the organizer, which it's, you know, put things in boxes and categories for everything. And there's, you know, tendency towards black and white thinking, but really very much planning and organization and structure and tasks and lists. it's a beautiful part of me. I love it. Right. It's very prone towards again, that, that black and white or perfectionist that kind of thinking. Right. And so when I was,

just studying up briefly on polyvagal theory, I did exactly what you said, which was like, okay, so dorsal vagal bad and sympathetic bad. Why I want to be in ventral vagal. That's where I want to be at. And not kind of self-aware of that, that black and white thinking really. It's, it's the, it's the integration, right.

Yeah, one of my favorite movies is Inside Out, right? And Inside Out 2. Favorite scenes in Inside Out 1 is at the very end when Riley comes back in. And if you remember, really Inside Out, that movie is about a 12 year old girl that is experiencing the grief of being moved across the country and losing all of her social engagement connections, right? Being isolated and alone and not having parents that really attune and connect with her because they're, you know, they're in the midst of trying to do this, you know.

I'm so good.

Chris Chandler (57:28.216)
cross country move. And so really like you've got a movie that is about a little girl trying to learn how to grieve, which really means learning how to not grieve because there's no one helping her with that. And so, and how many of us, that's our story, right? It's like, we're just kind of feeling like on our own, trying to, like you said earlier, like trying to learn how to connect with this anxious little boy inside. And so at the end of the movie, she comes in and she finally lets herself.

feel sad, lets herself feel this grief in relationship with her parents. And not only do they not push her away, they invite her in and they say, and they embrace. And then this magical thing happens. She has this moment of integration between sadness or exile and love for true self, right? And, and, and attachment. And so you get this ball that goes from blue or yellow to blue and yellow, right? And it's this beautiful moment. That is what we're talking about. That integration, right? Of being able to hold both of those things.

It's such an incredible moment and Inside Out 2, you know, goes to a whole higher level of complexity, I feel like. And when I first saw it, I really loved it. But then I, it was about a year of just deep dive into IFS and practicing it every day for me in my life. And when I watched it again and I remember I was just like, my gosh, the people who wrote this are geniuses.

this is IFS from beginning to end. then I looked it up online and it's like, yeah, IFS practitioners helped write this for children. was like, okay, yeah, that makes sense.

And the reason I bring that Jake is because that is, again, another thing in Polyvagal is that they, there's places where they will color code dorsal as blue and sympathetic as red and ventral as green. And then there's one of the best images I've ever seen is where you've got those things going up one side of the ladder. And on the other side, you have green, green and blue mixed. What does a ventral dorsal experience look like? that, that is the felt sense of that is rest, right?

Chris Chandler (59:32.906)
Is the ability to just like kind of feel calm in my nervous system. When I infuse ventral into dorsal, that is what I'm looking for, right? Is a restful state. And when I infuse the green into the red of sympathetic, right? What that translates is play and passion. That's when I'm in my creative self and I get to like, you know, really live with a sense of energy and excitement about life, right? But again, it's, it's healthy. and then, you know, when I'm in entirely green, it's that social engagement. I'm just, and so.

The hope is that I'm really being able to experience more integration in my life. That's the goal. I just want to make sure we stick the landing on that.

Yes, that's fantastic. I just one brief thing I want to say with that, you know, I had this experience recently of coming down with a virus and have a newborn as well. So lacking sleep and just feeling really dysregulated and tired and low energy. And I remember I, you know, I feel all this tension often when that happens, when I get tired and I feel like I'm not as capable.

there's this tension, I have to do more. I have to do all this stuff. I have so much to do. And I had this moment of just silence sitting there with my newborn and realizing I am in this battle with these, know, parts of me are battling right now. I'm in this tug of war. And what if I accepted I can't move as quickly right now? That was, I didn't do it successfully, honestly, but at least I brought awareness to it.

and was like, you know, maybe I could accept that I do feel tired. Maybe I could accept that I do feel sick and that it is difficult right now and it is okay for me to slow down a bit and have different expectations. And I kind of see that as similar to what you're saying, kind of in that vein of bringing in that self-awareness, that ventral vagal date, right, into the, you know,

Jake Kastleman (01:01:33.294)
Cause my body wants to rest. Part of me is saying, you need to rest. No, I won't rest. Right. it's then it's that's bringing that into the perhaps the dorsal vagal state and ventral and dorsal coming together in that way. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I would say meeting the sympathetic too, because there's the, manager parts that are like just go, go, go. So I'm meeting them too. It's like, Hey, I know you want to go, go, go. I get that. I understand you're trying so hard right now. And I appreciate how passionate you are.

we do need to slow down a bit. It's okay for us to slow down, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Chris, this is fantastic. What a beautiful conversation. I just appreciate it so much and appreciate you. I think it would be lovely for people to know just how they can work with you. And I know that you do group coaching. That's kind of your bread and butter from what I understand. But what you do, what you provide and how people can get in touch with you.

Yeah, well, to that point, I mean, whether it's me or anyone else, you know, one thing that Johan Hari said, you know, gosh, it's been like 15 years ago now, but he said early on that the opposite of addiction is not sobriety, opposite of addiction is connection. And so there's a kind of a catchphrase these days, but that everything we're talking about is like connecting, you know, with our parts, connecting with ourselves and in terms of like, you know, healthy integrated, you know, experience in our nervous system. And so for me.

recovery, health, healing, wholeness. just, as much as, you know, I've done individual work for 20 years with folks as well as always run groups as well on the side. And I just, over the years, it's like, makes more and more sense to me, but it's like, man, people that are in groups always get better faster without any question in my mind. It's just like, it's, it's a no brainer. And I've kind of known that, you know, but I just have really finally just said, you know what, I'm going to go all in on groups because this is such a relational.

disease, disorder, disconnection, right? Like because everything is rooted in relational detachment, disconnection, know, relational healing in my experience is really best, most effectively served in relational connection. So yeah, so I, that's all I do these days is I run, I actually have men's and women's groups now, but we just, we just run groups and we, and we do the work together. This is not like classic accountability groups. It's not 12 step groups. Like this is where we, we do IFS together. We do.

Chris Chandler (01:03:59.822)
Uh, you know, this, polyvagal theory work together. we, we part of it is learning together and that, you know, creates a synergy, but really it's about practicing and failing together. And, and, so that, that just gets me really excited. So yeah, the, um, the coaching company that I, that I have is called breath to bones and that's, based out of Ezekiel 37. Um, I can give you guys some of the information and content on that. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, well, fantastic. I'll put some links in the show notes for it. Breath to bones, right? Awesome. Awesome. Well, Chris, thanks again, man. Such a privilege to have you on,

Thank you, brother.