When we talk about resilience, we often think about bouncing back after challenge. But what if resilience is also about learning to stay anchored? About finding small ways of returning to calm, connection and curiosity even when life feels uncertain?
In Polyvagal Theory, the ventral vagal state is our biological home for safety and connection. It’s the part of our nervous system that supports It’s the physiological foundation for being both self-connected and relationally present
open-heartedness — where we can be grounded in ourselves and still available for others. From this place, our body feels at ease, our mind is clear, and we’re more capable of empathy, creativity, and collaboration.
When we’re anchored in ventral, our heart rate is flexible, our breath flows, and our facial muscles soften. We feel steady enough to engage with life. It’s from here that we can respond rather than react — what I call response-ability.
The dance between states
Of course, we don’t live in ventral all the time. Life is constantly moving. Stress, conflict, loss, or even fatigue can pull us out of connection. When our body perceives danger, it mobilises into sympathetic activation — fight or flight — readying us for action. And when we sense there’s no way to escape or resolve the threat, our system may drop into dorsal vagal shutdown, conserving energy through withdrawal or collapse.
These shifts are not signs of failure. They are our body’s brilliant adaptations — patterns shaped over millions of years to keep us alive.
As I wrote in Adaptive States and How They Influence Us, these states each have a protective purpose. The work of nervous system literacy isn’t to avoid them, but to learn to recognise them, to understand what they’re trying to do for us, and to cultivate the capacity to return — to find our way home to ventral, again and again.
Glimmers: micro-moments of safety and connection
Deb Dana, who coined the term glimmers, describes them as the tiny cues of safety that spark our ventral vagal system. They’re moments when something in us softens, even briefly — when life feels just a little more manageable.
A glimmer might be sunlight through leaves, the smell of coffee in the morning, the warmth of a pet against your body, the sound of birdsong, or the laughter of a friend. These moments matter because they remind our nervous system that safety still exists.
When we begin to notice and savour them, we’re doing more than enjoying a pleasant moment — we’re actively training our nervous system to orient toward regulation and resilience. Each glimmer is like a breadcrumb leading us back to connection.
Glimmers are not about bypassing pain or pretending everything is fine. They are about expanding our capacity to hold both — the difficulty and the goodness, the tension and the tenderness. Over time, this practice rewires our system to find safety more easily, even in the midst of challenge.
Anchoring in ventral
Anchoring is the practice of intentionally cultivating that ventral state — building the neural pathways that help us stay connected to ourselves, even when life moves quickly or feels unpredictable.
Think of it as growing roots of safety. Each anchor reminds your system that you can come home to yourself.
You might anchor through:
- A deep exhale and soft gaze
- Feeling your feet on the ground
- Placing a hand on your heart
- Remembering someone who makes you feel safe
- Listening to music that brings warmth or gratitude
These aren’t just feel-good gestures. Each one sends a signal through the vagus nerve, helping to calm the body and re-engage the brain’s social and creative networks. When practised regularly, these anchors increase your vagal tone (your system’s ability to recover after stress).
The stronger these pathways become, the easier it is to find your way back to calm and connection when life inevitably pulls you off centre.
How can I build resilience?
Resilience doesn’t come from never being knocked down. It grows from the rhythm of activation and return, the nervous system’s natural pulse between challenge and rest.
Every time we recognise our state, breathe, and return to ventral, we’re reinforcing this rhythm. We’re teaching our body that safety is accessible. That we can meet what comes and still find our way home.
This is what creates embodied resilience — not toughness or endurance, but the deep, lived knowing that I can be with what is, and I can come back.
A small practice
Take a moment to pause.
Notice something around you that feels pleasant, peaceful, or alive.
Let your attention rest there.
Breathe.
Sense what happens in your body as you orient toward that glimmer.
That’s resilience in action.
Want to learn more about your nervous system?
Join one of my Nervous System Literacy classes.
