Mapping Your Nervous System: Polyvagal States, Attachment, and How Patterns Form
About a 7-minute read ◡̈
Find the TL;DR at the bottom!
I often notice people finding their way to nervous system education because, despite being thoughtful and deeply self-aware, something inside still feels confusing or exhausting in a way that’s hard to name. They’re often very good at understanding why they feel the way they do, they’ve read the books, they can explain their patterns clearly, and yet there’s a familiar sense of, I know what’s happening… so why does my body still feel stuck?
This comes up often for people living with CPTSD or long histories of stress, where the body learned how to survive long before there were words for what was happening, and where intellectualizing, staying aware, attuned, or “together” became part of how safety and connection were maintained. In those contexts, thinking, tracking, and anticipating weren’t preferences so much as protective ways of staying oriented in environments where emotional cost or unpredictability was part of daily life.
For many, insight and awareness have already been part of the journey, and even with that understanding there can still be a gap between what makes sense intellectually and what the body is actually doing in the moment. Often this shows up in ways that are felt more than easily explained, especially when stress or connection is involved.
What I hear underneath all of this, again and again, is a quiet hope that sounds something like, I don’t need more information, I need my body to catch up.
Polyvagal-informed work offers something different from more analysis or self-correction. It offers orientation, a way to understand how your nervous system learned to respond to the world, especially in relationship, and why those responses still show up today, not as flaws or failures, but as adaptations shaped by experience and protection.
For people who are tired of thinking their way through healing, this can feel like a meaningful shift, where instead of asking what’s wrong with me? the question gently becomes what has my body been carrying, and how can I listen to it now?
What Polyvagal Theory Helps Us Make Sense Of
Many people already know what it feels like when their body reacts quickly, even when their mind understands what’s happening. You might logically know you’re safe or trust the people you’re with, and still feel your system shift, your breath change, your thoughts speed up or disappear, your body moving into action or withdrawal on its own timeline.
Polyvagal Theory offers a way to make sense of these moments, not as irrational reactions, but as autonomic nervous system responses organized around safety, danger, and connection. It gives language to how the body responds to what it senses inside the body, in the environment, and between people, often outside conscious awareness.
Rather than dividing experience into “regulated” or “dysregulated,” this framework invites a more nuanced understanding, one that recognizes the nervous system as constantly adapting to context, doing its best to support survival, orientation, and connection with the information it has available.
For many people, this reframing alone can be relieving. Instead of asking what’s wrong with me? the question begins to shift toward what has my system learned to do?
At its core, this framework helps make sense of a few key things:
How the nervous system moves between states
Often described as a ladder, this reflects how the body shifts between different states of protection and connection, including ventral vagal (connection and steadiness), sympathetic mobilization (urgency and action), and dorsal vagal (slowing, shutdown, or withdrawal).Why reactions happen quickly
Through neuroception, the nervous system is constantly scanning for cues of safety, danger, or connection beneath conscious awareness, which helps explain why the body often responds before the mind has time to sort it out.How connection shapes regulation
Co-regulation describes the way nervous systems influence one another through presence, responsiveness, and attunement, reminding us that safety is often learned and felt in relationship rather than generated in isolation.Why these responses are adaptive
Nervous system patterns are protective strategies shaped by experience and environment, not signs that something is broken.
Together, these ideas offer a map for understanding patterns that are often felt deeply in the body before they’re easy to explain in words.
Nervous System States as Context-Sensitive Responses
A nervous system state describes how the body and mind are organized in a given moment, shaping energy, attention, perception, and how available we feel for connection. These states aren’t identities or fixed traits, they’re temporary configurations that shift as circumstances change.
Most people move through three primary patterns of nervous system organization throughout the day, often without conscious awareness:
Ventral vagal — top of the ladder
This is the state where things feel steady enough. Breath may feel more accessible, thoughts a little clearer, and there’s more room to stay present with yourself and others, even while emotions move through. Connection feels possible, and support can land.Sympathetic — middle of the ladder
In this state, energy rises in response to pressure or perceived threat. It can show up as anxiety, restlessness, racing thoughts, irritability, urgency, or a strong pull toward action, problem-solving, or escape.Dorsal vagal — bottom of the ladder
Here, the system conserves energy to reduce overwhelm. For many people this feels like heaviness, fog, numbness, disconnection, shutdown, freeze, or wanting to disappear for a while.
Feeling emotions isn’t the same as being in a survival state. Emotions can move through while the nervous system still has enough capacity to stay present and connected. Survival states are less about what you feel and more about how much flexibility and choice are available while you’re feeling it.
Each of these states reflects how the nervous system is trying to help you get through what it’s sensing in that moment.
How Attachment and Nervous System Patterns Grow Together
As people begin to notice their nervous system states, many also start to recognize how strongly these patterns show up in relationship. Certain shifts happen more quickly around closeness, distance, conflict, or care, moments where the body reacts before there’s time to think.
Attachment here isn’t a label or category, but the accumulation of nervous system learning formed through repeated experiences of connection. Over time, the body learns what to expect from closeness, from reaching out, from needing, and those expectations shape how connection feels later on.
When care was responsive and consistent, connection often became associated with settling and support. When care was unpredictable, overwhelming, or emotionally risky, the system adapted differently, developing protective responses that preserved safety or connection at a cost.
Seen through this lens, push–pull patterns aren’t contradictions. They’re nervous systems holding layered information about what connection has required in the past.
Mapping Nervous System States: How It Works
In Polyvagal-informed work, mapping is a way of making nervous system patterns visible so they can be understood rather than reacted to. This practice is formally known as the Personal Profile Map. In my work with clients, I usually refer to it as mapping nervous system states, language that tends to feel more accessible and grounded in lived experience.
Mapping is often done reflectively, after the moment has passed, when there’s more space and less pressure. The goal isn’t accuracy or fixing anything. It’s familiarity.
Step One: Draw the Map
Start by drawing a simple ladder with three sections:
Top — Ventral vagal
Middle — Sympathetic
Bottom — Dorsal vagal
This ladder isn’t something to climb. It’s a way to orient to how your nervous system organizes itself across different states.
Step Two: Gently Remember a Moment From Each State
Begin by recalling a time when you were in each state. You don’t need to revisit the full memory or go deep into it. A brief sense or outline is enough, just enough to let your nervous system recognize the state.
Think of this as touching the essence of the experience, not re-entering it.
Ventral (top of the ladder)
Recall a moment when you felt at least steady enough, connected, or present.Sympathetic (middle of the ladder)
Recall a time of activation or urgency, noticing the quality of mobilization without amplifying it.Dorsal (bottom of the ladder)
Recall a moment of slowing, withdrawal, or shutdown, just enough to notice the flavor before returning attention to now.
You can pause or stop at any point. You’re in charge of the pace.
Step Three: Map Each State Using Personal Landmarks
For each state, begin to describe what your experience tends to be like. You don’t need to fill in everything at once.
You might notice:
Body sensations
(tight chest, clenched jaw, shallow breathing, buzzing energy, heaviness, feeling frozen, floaty, or wired-but-tired)Thought patterns
(spiraling, overthinking, catastrophizing, mentally checking out, self-criticism, urgency, “I can’t deal with this,” “why am I like this”)Emotions
(anxious, irritated, overwhelmed, numb, sad, on edge, low-key okay, relieved)Behaviors or impulses
(doom scrolling, people-pleasing, over-explaining, ghosting, canceling plans, staying busy to avoid feeling, isolating, zoning out)“I am…”
(I am behind. I am too much. I am not enough. I am invisible. I am barely holding it together. I am okay-ish. I am safe right now.)“The world is…”
(too much, overwhelming, demanding, unsafe, unpredictable, exhausting, manageable)What you call this state
(survival mode, go-go brain, freeze mode, shutdown, spiraling, dissociation station, grounded-ish)
Step Four: Using the Map Going Forward
The map isn’t meant to be completed once and set aside. It becomes a reference point you can return to over time, especially after moments that feel familiar, confusing, or bigger than expected. Not to analyze yourself, but to gently orient to what your system was doing and why that might make sense.
People often use their map in a few key ways:
To recognize states sooner
Over time, many people start to notice earlier signs of a shift, like changes in breath, muscle tension, energy, pacing, or thinking. These early cues can make responses feel less sudden or overwhelming.To name what’s happening without self-blame
Naming a nervous system state can shift the inner conversation from “what’s wrong with me?” to “this feels like sympathetic for me,” or “this looks like dorsal,” creating a bit of space between the response and identity.To understand what actually supports each state
The map can help clarify what tends to help in different moments, what supports ventral steadiness, what allows sympathetic energy to move through, and what feels tolerable or supportive during dorsal shutdown, rather than forcing the same strategies everywhere.To notice blended states
Many experiences aren’t purely one state. The map can help name combinations, like mobilized energy with connection (often felt as playfulness or creativity), or shutdown with safety present, which can feel quieter but still connected.To share language with others
Some people bring their map into therapy or relationships as a way of reducing guesswork, offering language for experiences that are often hard to explain, and supporting co-regulation through clearer communication.
In the Be.coming
The ways your nervous system responds didn’t appear randomly. They show up in how your body reacts, how closeness lands, how stress moves through you, and how certain patterns repeat over time. When we slow down enough to notice them, they often feel less confusing, not because they stop, but because they finally have context.
Mapping your nervous system is one way of staying with what’s already here. It offers language for experiences that are often felt long before they’re easy to explain, and a way to notice yourself with a little more steadiness. Nothing to fix, nothing to force, just a way of being with your system as it is, while it continues becoming.
For Those That Need The TL;DR
What Polyvagal Theory Helps Us Make Sense Of
Polyvagal Theory offers language for moments when the body reacts faster than thought. It helps name those shifts as responses shaped by safety, danger, and connection, rather than something irrational or wrong.
Nervous System States
Throughout the day, the nervous system moves between different states of organization, including times of connection, urgency, and slowing or withdrawal. These shifts aren’t identities or traits, but context-sensitive responses to what the system is sensing.
Attachment and Nervous System Patterns
Attachment reflects how the nervous system learned to navigate closeness over time. Push–pull patterns often make more sense when seen as layered responses shaped by what connection has required, rather than as contradictions.
Mapping Nervous System States
Mapping is a way of getting to know how your nervous system tends to organize itself. By noticing personal landmarks across states, experiences that once felt confusing can start to feel more familiar.
Using the Map Going Forward
Over time, mapping can help responses feel less surprising and less personal. It offers a way to notice what’s happening with a bit more space, rather than trying to change it in the moment.
The becoming
The patterns you notice didn’t appear randomly. Mapping offers a way to stay with them as they are, with more context and a little less pressure to be different.
Gentle Reminder
This blog is meant to be educational and it is not a replacement for therapy or professional care. If something here stirs big feelings, I encourage you to bring it to a trusted therapist or support in your community. You do not have to sort through it all alone.
