Why You Feel Better After Venting; A Nervous System Perspective
What A Good Venting Sesh Does For You
When you call a friend and hit them with the, “I don’t want to talk shit but…” or “Girl, you’ll never believe…..” you know you are about to vent your heart out. Whether it’s 10 minutes or hours long, at the end you are feeling seen, heard, validated maybe even vindicated, light and a bit more cohesive.
Why Venting Make You Feel Good
In three simple words: Ventral Vagal system. When you are venting to a friend you are being heard, seen and validated which are all components of connection. When we are connecting we are also allowing our Autonomic Nervous System to slow down which means the parasympathetic is able to come online where we can rest and digest and this is where the ventral vagal is located. As we are venting to our friend we are slowly entering into a ventral vagal state. This is a state of presence and calm, where you are able to notice more details- see things more clearly and actually feel connected to your life and the world around you. Maybe you even feel hungry after you have vented, that is because your body was able to digest.
Why Does Ventral Vagal State Feel So Amazing?
Polyvagal Theory describes our Ventral Vagal system as the “social engagement system” and seeing as humans are social beings being able to be in this state as much and as appropriately as possible makes us feel alive and connected. This feeling of connection is such an important aspect to our lives and is something that can be experienced from small interactions to larger ones, but can only be experienced when we are able to slow down and feel safe. Somatic Experiencing helps us do just that.
How Does Somatic Experiencing Facilitate the Ventral Vagal State?
Somatic Experiencing works with your Autonomic Nervous System. This system is unconscious, meaning it acts without us having to think. It is responsible for our ability to rest, digest, fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and connect. The Ventral Vagal System is located within the autonomic nervous system. Humans have many incomplete responses to trauma in our nervous system creating almost an open system or a guided pathway, meaning that we will continue to react to things in the same way because at a nervous system level we are not experiencing the present event but one from our past that most likely felt much bigger to us then than it would now. When we have these reactions or are constantly in fight, flight, fawn or freeze it is impossible to connect or be in the ventral vagal state.
SE allows you to come back into your body and complete these responses giving your nervous system new pathways to operate including the ventral vagal state.
Signs You Have Incomplete Trauma Responses In Your Autonomic Nervous System
Insomnia, sleep without rest, reactions don’t match the actuality of the event (too big, too small, delayed), people pleasing, not able to set boundaries, guilt, not able to digest food properly or well, low self confidence/worth, not able to take action in your own life, overwhelming fear/worry, disassociated, heavy self-isolation, looking for connection in the wrong places/with the wrong people, issues around vulnerability/honesty, manipulative, not able to take accountability, heavily critical/judgemental, hypocritical, frozen, healthy conflict is not present (extreme conflicts is only present i.e. blow ups vs pretending nothing is wrong), not able to trust/paranoia, etc
But Caitlin don’t we all have these issues? Yes! To experience trauma is to be a human that is alive, to complete our trauma it is a human who is ready to live.
