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At first glance, the connection between our nervous system and our relationships may seem unclear. However, after this powerful and approachable conversation, you'll gain a practical understanding of how your nervous system influences your attachment style and childhood conditioning for safety.
Join Mickenzie and Hannah for a fascinating conversation with Dr. Keri Johnson. Dr. Keri brings incredible expertise as a Somatic Trauma Therapist, educator, and yoga practitioner to ground several complex topics and create paths to better understand ourselves and others.
Mentioned in this episode:
6:36 – Who is Dr. Keri Johnson?
Join Mickenzie and Hannah for a fascinating conversation with Dr. Keri Johnson. Dr. Keri brings incredible expertise as a Somatic Trauma Therapist, educator, and yoga practitioner to ground several complex topics and create paths to better understand ourselves and others.
Mentioned in this episode:
6:36 – Who is Dr. Keri Johnson?
9:02 - Grief, trauma, and healing through somatic work and yoga
19:08 – How Dr. Keri Johnson got into Somatic Trauma Therapy
27:00 – States of the Nervous System and Polyvagal Theory
33:41 – How the Nervous System is correlated with our attachment style
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Whether you’re in a challenging season or just want to learn and grow, Onsite has an experience to meet you right where you are and guide you to the more you’re seeking.
We pair the finest hospitality with the best clinical minds in the country to guide you toward lasting transformation. Our holistic care is thoughtfully designed to help you connect to yourself and the community you form at Onsite.
You deserve healing. We're here to guide you! Start the process today or connect with our Admissions team at 1-800-341-7432 to discover the right experience for you!
Creators & Guests
What is Living Centered Podcast?
So many of us go through life feeling out of touch with ourselves, others, and the world around us. We feel disconnected, overwhelmed, distracted, and uncertain of how to find the clarity, purpose, and direction we so deeply, so authentically, desire. The Living Centered Podcast in an invitation to another way of living.
Every episode, we sit down with mental health experts, artists, and friends for a practical and honest conversation about how to pursue a more centered life—rediscovering, reclaiming, and rooting in who we truly are.
I think it's hard to have any type of conversation about relationships and not talk about attachment theory. And there's different ways that we can understand attachment and the simplistic way that I really appreciate. I appreciate the work of doctor Stan Tatkins. He talks about attachment theory in 3 different ways. That also goes really well with polyvagal theory and the 3 states of activation.
Dr. Keri Johnson:So we're all wanting to cultivate secure attachment. Right? This would be in polyvagal theory. This would be our ventral vagal. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:This is where we are in our social nervous system. We feel safe. We've connected. Stan calls this our anchor. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:So what we're wanting to cultivate within ourselves and within others is a secure attachment, an anchor. And then if we move down the autonomic ladder, right, if for polyvagal theory, if we were to go down into sympathetic, that would be anxious attachment, also known as ambivalent. Right? So this is where we have a bit more of that sympathetic presentation where we have that anxiousness. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:Stan Tatkins calls those waves. Right? Waves is this anxious. Right? We're we're going back and forth.
Dr. Keri Johnson:It's like, I'm okay. I'm not okay. And then when we move further down, we have our dorsal and this would be avoidant. And Stan Tatkins calls these islands. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:Where it's like, I am good on my own. Right? And there's actually a fear within relationship that it is going to thwart my independence. Right? If I get too close or if I get too involved, then somehow I'm gonna be suffocated.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Somehow I am not gonna be able to have the independence or do what I wanna do. So I'm gonna bit more collapse. I'm going to step away. I'm going to be an island.
Mickenzie Vought:Welcome to the Living Centered Podcast, a show from the humans at Onsite. If you're new to this space and just beginning this journey, we hope these episodes are an encouragement, a resource, and an introduction to a new way of being. If you're well into your journey and perhaps even made a pit stop at Onsite's Living Centered Program or one of our other experiences, we hope these episodes are a nudge back toward the depth, connection, and authenticity you found. In this series, we sat down with some of our favorite experts and emotional health sojourners to explore the relationships that make up our lives. From our friendships to our families or families of choice to our relationship with ourselves, part practical resource and part honest storytelling that will have you silently nodding me too.
Mickenzie Vought:This podcast was curated with you in mind. Let's dive in.
Hannah Warren:Hey, friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Living Centered Podcast. Today, I am so excited for you to hear from our friend, doctor Keri Johnson. Doctor Keri is a somatic trauma therapist. She's an educator.
Hannah Warren:She's a teacher. She's a yoga practitioner. And all around, she's an amazing human who I've really learned so much from. And I'm so grateful that she joined us for this conversation. She helps break down a lot of topics that I had heard a lot about before but never fully understood, and she just brings it about in a really embodied way.
Hannah Warren:So I'm so excited.
Mickenzie Vought:Absolutely. I literally think in the interview, I stopped her and said, I'm getting this in real time in a way that I never have before. So especially if you've heard a lot of these things, but never been able to really ground the concept, the way she explains polyvagal and attachment and our nervous system was just such an approachable way, and I'm really grateful for it. And we talked a lot about, in this series on relationships, of how our internal nervous system can impact the way that we show up in our relationships. And I just think she's so fascinating from a somatic standpoint and how she got into the therapeutic lens, and more like the mind from being someone who had practiced so much in her body.
Mickenzie Vought:So I can't wait for you to meet Doctor Keri Johnson. Keri, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.
Hannah Warren:Thank you.
Mickenzie Vought:Would you start by just kinda giving us a glimpse of what is the season of your life look like? Let's just get to know you as a human a little bit.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Yeah. I love that opening question. And just 1 thank you for having me. I would say this season of my life is really setting deeper foundations of my work. So I'm a somatic trauma therapist.
Dr. Keri Johnson:I was in grad school for a really long time. I've done a lot of different trainings, specifically focusing on somatics and the nervous system. And for me, I identify as a theme weaver. So I'm also a long time yogi, yoga practitioner and yoga teacher teaching for about 20 years practicing for over that. And so 1 of the things that I love is, like, we weave together different themes.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Right? That's part of what we in yoga practice, we call a Dharma talk where it's like this intention setting at the beginning of a class. And for me throughout my life, that has very much been what I do is I explore different themes. And in my mind, I weave them together. And I get curious about how these different puzzle pieces work in order to support other people's in their healing.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Specifically, this whole healing journey for me really began through the portal of grief and really getting curious how I can provide support for individuals in ways that I, as a a young girl, did not have, and as a young human didn't have. And so what I feel this particular season is really about laying the foundation of weaving somatics, the nervous system, polyvagal theory. I've also I'm deeply inspired by the work of Brene Brown, and I have done her teacher training. And I'm a certified Daring Way facilitator. And I'm a counselor educator.
Dr. Keri Johnson:I quite literally have my PhD in counseling and counselor education and supervision. So I get really curious of how do we weave together these different modalities in order to help alleviate suffering. I know that I'm deeply privileged in the education that I have and the trainings that I've done and my ability to weave together themes. And Mhmm. I'm kind of on this mission of how do we take perhaps more complex theoretical therapeutic modalities, terms, tools, practices.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And how do we break it down into bite size pieces and also bring it out of the therapy room and create different ways of how do we help support individual 1 nervous system at a time.
Hannah Warren:Mhmm. Keri, I feel like you're already doing that, like, the way that you said you wanna bring it to people in their suffering and all that. Like, the way that you speak is just so invitational. I was just thinking about the specific each time I've had a time that I've been able to connect with you, I've been really encouraged and impressed by your language is so intentional. Even talking about, like, weaving themes or grief as a portal, You just use words that are like, I want to venture into that instead.
Hannah Warren:Like, normally, I wouldn't think like, yeah. Let me dive into grief. Like, it just really does feel like, oh, if it's a portal, it's going somewhere. If it's a portal, I'm invited into it. There's something for me to learn there.
Hannah Warren:There's something for me to grow inside of that. And so I think I'm, first of all, just so grateful that you are using language that is so, like, choice for, like, you're I I just feel like it's all intentional and all invitational. And so I I'm so encouraged that you get to do that both here for our listeners today, but also just like in life. Like, I think you just have such a massive impact on people. And I'm so grateful that you show up in the world the way that you do because I think sometimes this stuff can feel so scary and so overwhelming or especially like like you just said, like, you have the privilege of having so much education and things like that.
Hannah Warren:Like, it can seem so heady or so, like, I don't comprehend this. I don't get it. But, yeah, I'm excited for us to dive into some concepts today that could be heady, but I think you will help us understand them in a very lived felt embodied way. Mhmm. So thank you for that already.
Hannah Warren:I feel already. My body is feeling this conversation more than my head. And this is a kind of heady conversation. So thanks.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Oh, thanks for that reflection, Hannah. Yeah. And I to that point, I think it's so important that we move from cognition down into our body. Because all of these theories, all of these various tools can they can if they just stay up in the land of our head, they're actually not gonna be able to have the healing potential that they can be when they are felt, when we bring them into our body. I'm glad to
Hannah Warren:hear that.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Yes. That is deep part of my chapters and what I'm interested in doing. So I'm glad it's planning for you.
Hannah Warren:That's such a thing that we believe at Onsite Somatic work is kind of ingrained into what we do experientially in our groups and in our intensives. But I think I mentioned this in a previous conversation with you, but I love that that's where you started because I think a lot of time therapists don't start there. They start in the, like, head, and mind, and I love that you kinda got your start in the more somatic body movement side of things, even just being a yoga practitioner and things like that. Because, really, we need all of it, and it's all 1, and it's all interconnected.
Hannah Warren:But I think a lot of times, both on the on the therapist side and on the client side, a lot of times we start our healing experience just in our minds. And we think like, oh, I need to go just talk about this. And that's a really lovely gateway. But I think for me, I found the most healing when I can connect it to my body, when I can feel the lived experience of it. And so I love that it's kind of a, it's a lovely way you started, but it's not always a traditional way that you started your practice.
Hannah Warren:You know? You shared a little bit about, like, you doing this work as a portal for grief. Is that from your own lived experience? What can you share a little bit more about kind of how you stumbled into that?
Dr. Keri Johnson:Yeah. So I did my undergraduate at the University of Vermont, and I was studying environmental studies and plant and soil science.
Hannah Warren:So it was before
Dr. Keri Johnson:I embarked into anything in the land of counseling, or even psychology. And I had already been practicing and teaching yoga at this time. And I was teaching a course called Yogic Environmental Philosophy that my friend, and I, we co created. And we had the experience that 1 of our friends and students in that semester went missing and was murdered her body was found a week later. And that actually was the second friend of mine that had been murdered.
Dr. Keri Johnson:I had some a friend from my hometown in New Jersey, murdered my freshman year of college, and then my senior year of college, another 1 and being in the the role of some type of facilitator guide container holder at that time in that course. And through that experience was incredibly profound. And we we had guidance. Right? We had a faculty member that was overseeing our course and was deeply supportive.
Dr. Keri Johnson:But I would say that was some of my deep initiation into grief. And then a couple years later, my father unexpectedly passed away from a massive heart attack. And that, again, radically shift my world. And, honestly, it wasn't even until shortly before that point in my early twenties that I even went to counseling for the first time.
Hannah Warren:Mhmm.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And it was actually the time around Michelle's death. Michelle Gardner Quinn was my friend. That it was actually chakra yoga theory that was my portal into grief. And so just small little tangent here that I often talk about when I'm in yoga teacher trainings is the chakras are these energetic subtle centers of our body. There's different emotions, relationships, colors.
Dr. Keri Johnson:You might be familiar with the color, like the rainbow and all of these different things, different parts of our body. And the particular style of yoga that I teach and I was practicing at the time is called Jeeva Mukti Yoga. And there's always a focus of the month. So circling back to that theme weaving. There's a focus of the month and that particular month of October 2, 006 was on the heart of chakra or our heart center.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And that is the abode of our compassion. And it's also the relationship of forgiving others who may have hurt ourselves or those we love or, and so we're in this practice, and we're experiencing backbends and the teachers inviting us again to cultivate compassion and forgiveness. And the only person that was coming up to mind was the individual who murdered my friend. And at this point, he had been he had been found and he was in jail. And, and so I'm going back into a back then.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And I'm just like having tears streamed down my face and getting curious about relationships in like a particular portal, a particular lens, like I'm not looking at all of my emotions at once. Right? That can get really overwhelming. It's, like, I feel so many things that I don't even know where to start. It's kinda like this, like, balled up yarn.
Dr. Keri Johnson:It's, like, you pull 1 really hard and it's, like, just gets tighter. It's like, okay, let's focus on 1 portal and the shadow emotion for the heart is grief. And so that's really where I started getting curious about experiencing my emotions. Because prior to that, I was really good at numbing. I was really good at escaping and, like, just having a really good time.
Dr. Keri Johnson:I always say that part my initial initiation into this world was a lot of sex, drugs, rock and roll. And, like, I just found myself having a lot of fun. And it was a way of escaping a lot of pain in my youth. And so I got curious. Oh, if I pull this thread slowly, I can get curious.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Not only curious about myself, but curious about how I show up in relationships. I can gain perspective in how other people show up in relationships. Why they perhaps do what they do, how they respond, what they spawn, think how they think. And so I would say that is a bit of the initiation that brought me into this work. So again, you were saying about traditional, it's not the traditional way, I would say I'm anything but traditional in a lot of areas of my role.
Mickenzie Vought:As Keri shared her unconventional way that she got into the lane of therapy through somatic work and yoga, I was curious how this path eventually led into helping people understand the nervous system and its impact on relationships with ourselves and others.
Dr. Keri Johnson:For me, I feel that the pathway was I was really curious about people's belief systems and how that affected their relationship to the natural world. Long live environmentalist. I grew up on a small family farm in New Jersey. I like to say it's called the garden state for a reason, not just because of the parkway. But so I came down to graduate school here in Florida, the University of Florida, where I was studying religion and nature and religion in Asia because I was really interested in yogic philosophy, very traditional philosophy, and how those perhaps could be modes of, theory or tools or ethics, morals, values that we can apply for environmentalism.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And then it was through my time here that I actually got exposed to the center of spirituality and health at the University of Florida, where there was a course called mindful living. Mhmm. And what I realized, I'm actually more interested by people's belief systems about themselves and how that affects everything. Right? So I for me, it's this really like, it is a cognitive understanding, but it's more of this, like, internal perspective.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Like, how do people believe and understand themselves? And how does that affect their relationship to themselves, to others, to the world? And so insert Britney Brown's work. Right? With her work on authenticity and wholeheartedness and shame and shame resilience and everything that gets in the way of authentic living.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And so for me, I get really curious of alright. So these are stories you're telling yourself. Right? This is your self-concept. How does it feel?
Dr. Keri Johnson:Like, alright. And then so if we drop it into emotions, alright, how does that emotion feel in your body? Like, if you were to identify a sensation. And 1 of the the tools that I use, quite often in my individual and group work is called the channels of perception. And I learned this when I was going through somatic experiencing training.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And pretty much what this is, it's this idea that we all perceive individual experiences from many different perspectives, many different lenses. And it's an acronym called SI BAM. So sensations, images, behavior, affect or feeling, and meaning. And that could be meaning, thoughts, memories, beliefs. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:So these are, again, different ways that we can just look at 1 small piece of the puzzle at a time. So if we're exploring, let's say, the lens of grief or the lens of relationships. Alright. What stories do you have about yourself in relationships? Maybe there's particular memories come up of, like, oh, well, that x and, oh, my heart hurt and oof, and, like, are my parents and we can have all these stories.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Okay. Well, what's the emotional thread that is in there? And then if you get curious about that emotional thread, are there any particular sensations that come up or images? It's like, oh, I feel a lot of tightness in my heart. Alright.
Dr. Keri Johnson:What image comes up there? I feel like an elephant is sitting on my heart. Oh, gosh. It feels so heavy. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:And so these become ways that we get to paint a more nuanced picture of our internal lived experience. And the beautiful thing about the channels of perception is radio. And, like, old school radio, you would change the dial. And some stations, they came in super clear. And then others, nothing but static.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And so it's the idea of working with what channel is most alive for you. Right? But it's not a right. It's not a wrong. But it's beginning to learn the landscape of the languages that come through most clearly for you as an avenue for your own healing and curiosity.
Hannah Warren:That's very kind to say, like, hey, whatever 1 is working for you is what's working for you. And that's good. Because me is like a achiever. I'm like, I gotta turn them all up. Like, why don't they me?
Hannah Warren:I can't get I can't get this 1. Like, if I can do I know my gut's gonna say, like, if I can do a little, a lot's a whole lot better or whatever. You know, it's like, I want it all. Yeah. For someone who's, like, curious about these channels, is this something you see when practiced, like, people have the ability to be able to access more or hear from more, Or does it ebb and flow for yourself personally?
Hannah Warren:Like, some days are you really clear in this way and some days you're really clear in that. How's your development of practice with the channels been effective for both you and people that you help access that?
Dr. Keri Johnson:Yeah. So I've always been a very visual person. So visuals are like, I can paint a picture and draw back a visual of anything that kinda comes to mind. Some people, like, are not very visually oriented. Maybe they're more emotionally oriented.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And I would say the more we get to practice a little bit at a time in somatics, we call this titration. It's kinda based off chemistry. Right? We use a little bit of a charge, a little bit of it. It's like we can just take 1 small tolerable step of, like, okay.
Dr. Keri Johnson:What's it like to what images come to mind when we're exploring relationships or grief? Yeah. Or if you're thinking about your ex. Let's say there's been a recent breakup or betrayal. Okay.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Let there's probably a lot of rich substance there that we can get curious about. Where do we wanna start? And there's ways that in practice, it's taken me time and practice and just like a a devoted dedication practice to dropping out of my head in the land of story into emotion and felt sense. Because I grew up very shame prone. Meaning, I have a lot of stories and narratives based upon my lived experience that are like, well, that didn't happen because I'm I'm not good enough.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Or, you know, they broke up with me because I'm not enough. I'm not x, y, or z enough. And I would get caught in the story and then the emotion and then I would in my nervous system, it would just, like, drop me down into collapse. And what I would be curious about is, okay, well, what sensations come up there? Like, can we just get curious?
Dr. Keri Johnson:Can we pause the story for a moment? And what what sensations or emotions are coming up for you before we really feel into the story? And so it it takes practice to move slowly in this. I feel so often in somatic and in healing, I'll say, people want a quick fix. It's like, tell me.
Dr. Keri Johnson:I know it. You gotta call for it. What do I where do I find? You know? And a lot of this work, it it can feel very slow, and it can also progress really quickly once you start building the foundation.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And for me, the biggest foundation of learning of my own healing, and which is why I feel like I dedicate my life to it in my work, is the work of the nervous system. Because the more we can get an idea of what nervous system state we're in of regarding anything and guarding our relationship, what thoughts, feeling, beliefs, behaviors kind of come up, all of it is connected to our nervous system, then that perhaps can give us, oh, if I'm here, then I, what can I do to support myself in this place?
Hannah Warren:I'd love if you could help us explore the states of the nervous system a little bit. We've talked about it a little bit on the podcast before, but, I think you talked about it really beautifully. So when you say that, like that has opened up your own healing, what knowledge of that has been helpful? What are the states in the nervous system? How can we begin to get familiar with them?
Dr. Keri Johnson:Sure. So polyvagal theory specifically was what really transformed my understanding of the autonomic nervous system. And polyvagal, theory was founded and created by doctor Steven Porges. And also, it was really expounded upon by Deb Dana in her work, making it more applicable from a therapeutic lens. And so there's 3 states of activation in our nervous system where we experience safety.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Right? Being able to see your faces and, like, this is connection. Right? It's where we feel safe, where we feel connected. And then if we experience any real or perceived sense of danger, then we're gonna experience what's referred to as sympathetic nervous system.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And this is where fight or flight lives. Right? We might be more familiar with that fight or flight energy. This is also where a lot of anxiety lives. It's like we
Hannah Warren:Yeah.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Our heart will begin to race. We have trouble thinking clearly. Right? I like to think of it as, like, if a cheetah were chasing after us, we need all of our energy to either run away or fight it off. And so our energy isn't going to go to support us with our digestion or making cognitive rational functions.
Dr. Keri Johnson:We don't have access to our prefrontal cortex in order to make decisions when we are in the sympathetic state. Yeah. And so even just knowing that little piece right there, that we don't have access to the part of our brain that makes rational decisions when we are in this place. Oh, it's not my fault. I'm not doing anything wrong.
Dr. Keri Johnson:I'm this is my nervous system in a state of survival. Yeah.
Hannah Warren:So it
Dr. Keri Johnson:makes sense. And then the the last state of activation of our nervous system is when we're experiencing a real or perceived sense of life threat. So it's no longer danger. It's like if we don't collapse, we will die. And so this is very much where, I like to 1 of my teachers, Sarah Baldwin, uses the analogy of a bear in hibernation here.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Right? This is where we quite literally have no energy. We go into a state of collapse. And this is also, again, an incredibly wise survival system here because the only way to remain alive to survive is if we collapse. It's a state of immobilization.
Dr. Keri Johnson:We don't have the ability to move, make decision, get out of bed, do anything like that. And so learning about that and learning about the distinction that it is how we perceive our lived experience that all of this responds to. So we have a part of our nervous system, our autonomic nervous system called neuroception. And Steven Porges coined that term. And really what it means, we have this part of our autonomic nervous system that is continually, every moment by moment, every second, assessing our experience of whether people or situations are safe, dangerous, or life threatening.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Like, and that is happening unconsciously. We are not aware of it, which means we respond to, the unfolding of our life based upon quote unquote real or quote unquote perceived safety, danger and life threat. So if we have past experiences that have us that feel any flavor of similarity to what is unfolding in front of us in the present moment, we have this internal database that neuroception is continually filling up with our experiences. Oh, I'm familiar with this. This is this is danger.
Dr. Keri Johnson:We're not okay here. And so this is where all of these different pieces weave together into how this affects how we relate to other people.
Mickenzie Vought:And it feels like almost an energy saving, like, on our brains behalf of being like, hey, this feels familiar. We don't have to assess all the danger.
Dr. Keri Johnson:We know it. Absolutely. Because if we have to get if it's danger or life threat, we have to act immediately. Like, it's it's like, the difference between urgent and like, important and urgent. Like, there is there is an immediacy and an urgency in order to survive.
Dr. Keri Johnson:So all our our beautiful body, our beautiful system is trying to keep us safe. Like, thank you, Bobby. Like, thank you for that incredibly wise decision. And can we come back to, like, present moment and make an assessment? Yeah.
Dr. Keri Johnson:What is happening unfolding in lifetime? And this is where often, in EMDR training, they often talk about trauma is when our past becomes present. Right? So all of this information that is stored in our internal database, when that becomes present, I'm no longer present age, Keri, speaking with you 2. I'm 5 year old me.
Dr. Keri Johnson:I'm 17 year old me. I'm, you know, whatever part particularly got activated, that past information is playing out in the present.
Hannah Warren:Yeah. That's good. 1 of our amazing clinicians, Kathleen Murphy, she says, trauma isn't what happened to you, but it's what's happening to you now. And so, like, the lived experience of it currently and how it's affecting you. I'm super curious.
Hannah Warren:Maybe we can dive into the window of tolerance a little bit, but I'm I'm wondering how if I'm perceiving on either end life threatening or danger, but that's not the reality. How can I dive into my perception a little bit more to understand what is the the the sympathetic or dorsal end of the polyvagal? Like, how do how do how do you get curious around that enough to not jump Mackenzie, something she says a lot is just because it's familiar doesn't mean it's the same. And that is, like, a beautiful lovely saying to reevaluate stuff. And when I'm high end, that's not what I feel.
Hannah Warren:I'm like Totally. Like, so how do we get curious enough around that or begin to widen our tolerance around things. Can you help us walk through that a little bit?
Mickenzie Vought:This conversation got incredibly deep and tactical. I think Keri breaks these really big concepts down in an approachable way. But I actually found that listening back through it the second time, I caught more and understood it at a deeper level. So I encourage you to go back or even relisten at a later time if you miss something or want to understand it a little more. The first part of the conversation really sets up the rest of our conversation as we explore how understanding our own nervous system can help us show up differently in our relationships and offer us a window into the nervous systems of the ones we love and with whom we're in relationship.
Mickenzie Vought:She connects the nervous system to our attachment styles in such a profound and simplistic way that it completely reoriented something in my brain.
Dr. Keri Johnson:So with our window of tolerance, what becomes really important is and this is what I often define, nervous system regulation as is it's about expanding our capacity to be flexible and adapt to the unfolding of our lived experience. Right? So we have this constant, what's referred to by Peter Levine as pendulation, where we expand and contract. We know this with our breath. We inhale and exhale.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Birds' wings open and close. We see it in the natural world all the time with the tides ebbing and flowing, flowers opening and closing, seasons. Right? The moon waxing and waning. That happens in our nervous system too, Where we expand and contract in various forms of what's called regulation or ventral and perhaps more edges of dysregulation in sympathetic or dorsal.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Now the window of tolerance is this beautiful way that we kind of how do we stay in that regulated place? It's we are gonna perhaps reach the edges of it. It's like, oh, I might be tapping a little bit into more sympathetic energy or a little bit more dorsal energy, and that's okay. How do we find our way back into a little bit more regulation or, back and forth movement? And I would say the things that become really important in that are different somatic or neural exercises that help us kind of come on back such as grounding techniques, finding your breath.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And depending on where you are in your nervous system, there's gonna be different practices. Right? Not all breath practices are created equal for our nervous system. Right? If we're in sympathetic, it's gonna be a different breath practice than if we're in dorsal.
Dr. Keri Johnson:So sometimes when I see, like, you know, TikTok therapist or in influencers, they're just talking all about, like, breath work saves lives. And I I absolutely believe breath work saves lives. Yeah. And there is really important nuance
Hannah Warren:to it. So I'll just
Dr. Keri Johnson:put that caveat out there. And so I would say it starts with really perceiving how do you come back to present moment. And if your nervous system is per is perceiving a real threat, like, how do we assess for that? It's like, okay. A car is pulling out in front of me and slamming on the brake.
Dr. Keri Johnson:That is a real threat. Or, okay. I'm in in a relational dynamic, and I'm having dinner with someone. And let's say they end up looking at their phone. And now this is referred to as biological rudeness, and it happens all the time in our society now with all of our devices.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Okay. Can I notice that in my system? Alright. What just happened? My heart just closed.
Dr. Keri Johnson:My breath just shortened. Okay. These are somatic indicators that are highlighting something has just shifted inside. So I would say it starts with what I call compassionate curiosity of how do we just begin to track what has shifted. And the more we can stay curious into what has shifted, it helps us stay in the present, which then we have a greater degree of assessing.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Are we in the past or are we present? Is it familiar or is it the same? Right. Back to Mackenzie's quote right there of this idea of how can we, like, assess the nuance of what is familiarity and what is the same?
Mickenzie Vought:Keri, I have heard about the window of tolerance, and I've heard about ventricular and the poly nervous system so many times, but something about just even watching you with your hands and people aren't in the video, but, like, the going up and the down, it just connected in my brain in a way that it hasn't before And how we are constantly trying to maintain on those ladder rungs if you're familiar with polyvagal of sympathetic to dorsal. Like, it just in my head, I don't know if that was for anyone else, but it really connected with me. And so thinking about like, it's natural to go up and down in that. We don't just wanna stay in the middle at all times. It's not, you know, good for our system.
Mickenzie Vought:But I just I wanted to thank you for the simplicity of that and kind of connecting it in a way that I haven't had connected in my brain before. As you're talking about the nervous system and relational patterns, something kind of, fired in my brain. And I know originally, when I first came to you and said, hey, you have so much expertise. We're in this relationship series. Will you help like, what would you what could we talk about?
Mickenzie Vought:And you said, I would love to talk about how attachment and our nervous system, like, kinda connect. And so we've had a couple episodes about attachment. It keeps I don't think you can have a series on relationships without it coming up because everyone else in our life is impacted by how our we early learn to relate to other people. And so how does our nervous system play a role on this? And I would love for you to kinda I'm just really curious of how can we take this work into a relational dynamic and give ourselves that grace, give ourselves that compassion to say, of course.
Mickenzie Vought:Like, of course, this makes sense that I'm getting activated in this moment.
Dr. Keri Johnson:I think it's hard to have any type of conversation about relationships and not talk about attachment theory. And there's different ways that we can understand attachment and the simplistic way that I really appreciate. Appreciate. I appreciate the work of doctor Stan Tatkins. And he talks about attachment theory in 3 different ways.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Many schools talk about 4. For simplicity, I appreciate the 3. And that also goes really well with polyvagal theory and the 3 states of activation. So we're all wanting to cultivate secure attachment. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:This would be in polyvagal theory. This would be our ventral vagal. Right? This is where we are in our social nervous system. We feel safe.
Dr. Keri Johnson:We've connected. Stan Tatkins calls this our anchor. Right? So what we're wanting to cultivate within ourselves and within others, like within our relationship with others, is a secure attachment, an anchor. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:And then if we move down the autonomic ladder, right, if for polyvagal theory, if we were to go down into sympathetic, that would be anxious attachment, also known as ambivalent. Right? So this is where we have a bit more of that sympathetic presentation where we have that anxiousness. Right? It's like, oh, they took 10 minutes too long to respond or, like, we've been together for so long, but, yeah, they they're gonna fall out of love with me now.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Right? Because they're gonna find this out about me or even they they know about this. And so I'm even in my voice. I'm kind of mimicking of what some of that is. Like, oh, if they texted yet, I'm like, oh, well, I you know, clearly, I have to keep doing these things because I'm not worthy of love enough.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And so that is a sympathetic presentation within anxious attachment. And Stan Tatkins calls those waves. Right? Waves is this anxious. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:We're we're going back and forth. It's like, I'm okay. I'm not okay. It's like, I'm okay. I'm not okay.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And then when we move further down, we have our dorsal and this would be avoidant. And Stan Tatkins calls these islands. Right? Where it's like, I am good on my own. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:And there's actually a fear within relationship that it is going to fort my independence. Right? If I get too close or if I get too involved, then somehow I'm gonna be suffocated. Somehow I am not gonna be able to have the independence or do what I wanna do. So I'm gonna bit more collapse.
Dr. Keri Johnson:I'm going to step away. I'm going to be an island. And so the more that we can potentially learn about where we are in our nervous system, and ideally, if we're talking about partnership, have this conversation with our partners so that they are also, informed about their nervous system and have insight into your nervous system, then it can be a conversation of, like, what just how like, you can notice something. Let's back to that example of you're having dinner with a partner, and then they're looking at your phone, or they're looking at their own phone. I mean, if they're looking at your phone, maybe that's a whole other conversation.
Dr. Keri Johnson:But there's a oh, and then they come back to the conversation because maybe it was just, like, a work message or maybe they're waiting on some, like, family information, but they didn't communicate that to you. You are interpreting that as they're no longer interested. I'm not worthy. I'm not lovable. Let's say you are a bit more potentially anxious.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And then, like, maybe there's a bit of shutdown or maybe your voice becomes a little bit faster And you're like checking in a lot, if they are attuned to your nervous system and have insight about nervous system of like, what just happened. And this is where I think also when we're talking about relationships, a key component is communication. How are we communicating what we're observing? How are we asking questions? How are we reflecting?
Dr. Keri Johnson:Because sometimes, especially where you are in your nervous system and your anxious adaptation or, excuse me, attachment style adaptation, it can change how we communicate. It can change the types of questions we ask, how we ask them, if we ask them at all. Or do we perhaps, like and depending on where we are, we can either ask a lot of questions, or we ask no questions and just retreat. And so it I think it affects everything.
Hannah Warren:I'm curious and through this lens of attachment. I've never thought about it related to our nervous system stages, so that was really helpful. And I've heard Santachen's descriptions before, but even, like, the movement of the wave now makes sense to me. Like, why would it be a wave? Like, I'm going in.
Hannah Warren:I'm going out. But I'm curious, like, so so many of us view attachment through the way that we formed relationships when we were young and or the way we saw modeled relationships. But what you're talking about right now, I'm curious, like, are you kind of saying that I shift in and out of these attachments then kind of based on where I am in my nervous system, or I may or I may be more prone towards when I my nervous system is activated, I may, like, sway back to wave, like, do we ebb and flow between island wave and anchor? Or are we kind of like, I am an anxious attached person. That's where I'm gonna go.
Hannah Warren:But kinda how does this work?
Dr. Keri Johnson:Yeah. So both and, I'd say, To to be clear. Classic. Wow. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:Classic therapist answer, it depends. Yeah. So with our nervous system, we have what's referred to as a vagal tone. Meaning, we our nervous system is toned in a particular way that we have a predominant state that's kind of our home away from home. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:It is our predominant nervous system state that we often find ourselves in. Now I don't know the statistics on this, but what I have seen in myself and in my work with my clients is that often that nervous system tone is also associated to our home away from home and our attachment style. Right? And what I love the work of Diane Poole Heller on attachment. I really love it.
Dr. Keri Johnson:She calls them attachment adaptations. And, again, there's just something so beautiful about that because it quite literally is how we adapted to our environment. There's nothing wrong with any of these. It it is simply how we adapt to survive. And I think that's 1 of the things about polyvagal theory that I love is 1 of, Deb Dana defines it as it's the science of safety.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Right? And so, like, I wanna learn about that sign. Like, I wanna learn how to
Hannah Warren:feel safe.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Sounds nice. And so these are different ways that we have learned to adapt. And so our nervous system adapts in certain ways. And based upon that, that's how we're gonna relate to other people. Now that being said, we have this general home away from home in our nervous system state.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And through work, through practice, through healthy coregulation, through safe and secure attachments, we can shift more towards a secure attachment style with ourself and with others. So we might still have 1 that we generally go back to, And there are ways that we don't have to be quote, unquote stuck in any particular way.
Mickenzie Vought:At this point, the light bulbs in my brain were going off. It still felt a little conceptual and the connections hadn't completely been made yet. So I took the opportunity to, let's say verbal process What I was uncovering and connecting? I hope that it helps ground this topic for you and maybe even offers a gate into dynamics that you can identify in your relationships as well. I was thinking just kind of grounding it to, like, my own experiences and I think of some of my closest relationships, I think about in a partnership or, like, a a really deep friendship, that being attuned to the how did you phrase that?
Mickenzie Vought:Being attuned to the language of our nervous system was fascinating to me because I thought about moments when my partner has I have gone into that squeaky high voice or I've gone into the lots of questions, and the waves go in and out. And quite literally, like, subconsciously, like, Hey, something shifted, what's going on? I can think of the opposite when he has, because I think of how our attachment styles are like, I'm anxious more, my attachment adaptation would be more anxious and his would be more avoidant. And so when he retreats, I can say like, Hey, something shifted. And I never recognize that cognitively.
Mickenzie Vought:But I think we've been together for 14 years, and I recognize it and kind of call that out. To think that's fascinating. And then I think in friendships, the ones that feel the most life giving are the people who notice when I got out of 1 of those 2 places, Like, hey. You're not seem like yourself. You're not feeling grounded.
Mickenzie Vought:Or, hey, where did you go? And so I love that practical application of thinking about how do I go down or up within my nervous system and when I'm activated and when something feels familiar? So I just kinda wanted to put legs to it, but I think it's I was just making the connections over here while you were talking. Hannah, have you seen that to be true?
Hannah Warren:Yeah. Totally. No. I think it's really permission giving all of it because as someone who is more adapted to be anxious attached as well, it's just permission giving to I don't see that as much in myself anymore when I'm in a healthy state. So it's cool to see the growth of like, oh, I'm in a partnership or a friendship or whatever relationship I'm in at the moment of where I don't need to use that as an adaptation right now to survive.
Hannah Warren:And so I've learned a new way of being safe. And so it's just cool. I was curious around how we ebb and flow in it. And I think that home state is like a helpful language being like, oh, yeah, that's familiar. So that's like, always gonna be a little bit of where I go to, but, like, I don't have to stay there.
Hannah Warren:And, like, we get to adapt in new and healthy ways. And if I go there, that's just more of, like, information of being, like, oh, what's happening here? Because I'm going to that home state. So something must be calling me into that familiarity. I must be trying to survive something.
Hannah Warren:I must be trying to feel safe. So I think it's a cool yeah. Just like
Dr. Keri Johnson:just information
Hannah Warren:to help us better understand ourselves.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Absolutely. And Hannah, what I love you highlighting there is the being able to get curious when you when you become familiar of what your home away from home nervous system state is attachment adaptation is, Then it becomes curious of, okay, what does it feel like there? When you are there, what does it feel like? So with nervous system work, we quite literally map our nervous system state. With attachment styles, it's like, okay.
Dr. Keri Johnson:What does it feel like for you when you are experiencing anxious attachment with a partner? Like, when you when that adaptation is activated, how do you know? Right? And this is also where it can be helpful to go through the channels of perception. Like, what sensations are present?
Dr. Keri Johnson:What images come up? What, you know, what's the fur what behaviors are there? What's the first thing you wanna do? What emotions? What meanings or stories or beliefs are you telling yourself about yourself, that relationship, the world?
Dr. Keri Johnson:I mean, that helps you paint a picture, a more nuanced and detailed picture of what is happening inside your living system at the time within your body, mind, heart, and spirit. So I do a lot of holistic work. Right? As you can tell, I'm not very traditional. We talked about this.
Dr. Keri Johnson:But I also believe that any work that doesn't focus on our body, our mind, our heart, and spirit is in part incomplete. Mhmm. So for me, I really like to weave it all together to get curious of, okay, how is this presenting itself in this particular moment? So then once we paint this picture, we kind of have what's referred to as somatic cues or somatic indicators. Right?
Dr. Keri Johnson:What is informing me that I have just shifted state? What just activated my anxious attachment? Like, I am now seeing like, given my partner, I'm, like, now seeing them cheat on me. It's like, what? Where where where did that come from?
Dr. Keri Johnson:What just happened? Oh, yeah. They just looked on their phone at dinner. They they, okay. And so again, it's not and so here's where communication becomes so important.
Dr. Keri Johnson:It's not about blaming, right? We want to be mindful how we communicate. It's more of, hey, can I share something with you that I just experienced? I just experienced you go on to your phone at dinner. I interpreted that as you not caring.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And do you wanna know the first image that came up to me? I just had this vision of you cheating on me. And I generally feel really secure in this relationship. And I just wanted to name it. Like, I just like and again, I think that's 1 of the things so often I feel that people wanna, like, do something about something.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And so often with with this work, it it's about simply noticing. We notice it. Mhmm. And then we name it. And then so I I call this in my work the 3 n's.
Dr. Keri Johnson:We notice, we name, and we navigate. Mhmm. So we notice something has shifted. Okay. How do we name it?
Dr. Keri Johnson:I'm aware that this image that just, like, want like, makes me feel really sad and, like, tears wanna come to my eyes. And I'm just, like, I all of a sudden feel not important in our relationship. Okay. How do I wanna navigate it? What do I wanna do differently?
Dr. Keri Johnson:Do I want to like, I'm starting to feel like I'm going into collapse. Okay. What's a breath practice that helps me when I'm in collapse? What's something that I can do? What's a movement that can help me move out of, and we refer to this as somatic discharge?
Dr. Keri Johnson:How can I move through that energetic state to figure out how to move me up the polyvagal ladder, the autonomic ladder, so I can come back into this state eventual? Or I can come back in my window of tolerance into this place of secure relating in my relationship with myself and whoever I might be in relationship with at that time.
Hannah Warren:So helpful. Notice, name, navigate. I love that. Keri, I feel like I could talk to you for 75 years. So we'll have to have you talk to you soon.
Hannah Warren:But I like what I said in the beginning about like, knowing you in a small way like that you just helped bring complex topics really in a way that makes sense and feels like I feel it. I don't just like know it. It was very true of this conversation. And I feel like I feel so much more empowered and understanding my own nervous system. And understanding how that makes sense in the way that I show up with myself and with others.
Hannah Warren:It's just been really beautiful to unpack with you today. So I'm just so grateful and so encouraged that our listeners will get to experience this and hopefully take a breath to notice whatever they're feeling to name it and to move forward in navigation. And if they don't fight quite feel equipped to navigate that on their own, that they find some support and finding practices that help them do that or help them figure out, okay. Well, I've just learned about all this stuff. What is what would a breath work practice be for collabs?
Hannah Warren:What would be a movement for something? You know? So I hope people take this as a starting point and just can go out and get curious and just dive into this a little bit more and find the resources that they deserve so that they can, navigate, all of the life experiences that we have.
Mickenzie Vought:1 thing that I came to my mind as Hannah was talking is that while it feels so simplistic, it doesn't feel like I know how to navigate it alone. So what would be your encouragement for resources or people could go or things maybe you offer to help people start to dive into this work?
Dr. Keri Johnson:Yeah. So as I was saying in the beginning, 1 of my things I'm really trying I'm a big advocate for is how to bring these tools outside of the therapy room. So I understand going to therapy, it's expensive. It's a privilege, and I don't want healing to be only for the privileged. And so I've created something called the essential somatic toolkit, and it's holistic practices for body, mind, heart, and spirit medicine.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And it is a 4 part self guided online program that there's recorded videos with me. There's guided breathing practices, guided meditations, guided somatic practices, And it's 3 tiered pricings to try to offer it available again for, a variety of people in just, like, different economic brackets. So to support healing. So if you're interested in any of this, listeners, please feel free to check it out. You can find it on my website at mindfultherapywithcaridot com/toolkit.
Dr. Keri Johnson:And, yeah, I I really want to, again, figure out how to get these tools to more people. And Yeah. So I'm exploring ways to do so and collaborating with you. It feels like a powerful way of doing so. So again, thank you for
Hannah Warren:Yeah.
Dr. Keri Johnson:The collaboration.
Hannah Warren:I'm so excited about that tool. I feel like our vision statement here is to build an emotionally well world and reconnect humanity. And we that starts with individuals and everybody we want to see that. We wanna see that. And we know Onsite is an amazing tool and we so firmly believe in it.
Hannah Warren:And we know it is out of reach for a lot of people financially. And so we're super passionate about helping equip people to find resources and give resources that we can, but also connect people to people like you that are doing this work. And I'm so grateful that you it's just my heart just, like, wanted to burst. So even just hearing you talk about, like, having different financial tiers. Like, I just love that you are trying to get this into as many hands as possible because I can tell that you believe in it and you believe that it will impact people and how they could just show up in the world.
Hannah Warren:And so I'm just really grateful, and we will definitely link that, in our show notes as well so people can check it out. But we're just so grateful for you both here in this conversation and what you're doing out there in the world.
Dr. Keri Johnson:Yeah. Thanks for sharing this conversation with me, Mackenzie and Hannah. It was honored to be here.
Mickenzie Vought:Thanks for listening to the Living Centered Podcast. If you're enjoying the show, we'd love for you to consider leaving us a review or rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you listen. It only takes a few seconds to navigate to the show in your app and select the stars to begin your rating. It helps more people find the show and we really appreciate it. Thanks so much.