Practice Library

The Social Nervous System

The Social Nervous System

Our next themed practice series offering is as usual open to all, and free of charge. Over 8 sessions of 75min each we will get to know our nervous system just a little bit better.

This is a level 1 series so the Introductory Practice Series (or equivalent), should be enough previous practice work to to participate. There is some theory to the work, which is mostly offered in form of the reading handout. That leaves most of the session available for us to practice.

Here is an attempt to to describe the sessions. Recent neurobiology conceives of our nervous system as having aspects of both reptile and mammalian nervous systems. One way to imagine this is that we are part way through a transition of adapting from the primarily individual nervous system of the asocial reptile, into one that is somewhat more interpersonal in nature. This is why some are now calling it not my nervous system but our nervous system, or the social nervous system.

The series draws heavily on the work of Stephen Porges and Deb Dana. Porges offered the conceptual framework, based on peer reviewed science, while Dana showed us how to apply it to our relationships, be those family, work or of a therapeutic nature.

The series is not going to make you enlightened, or smarter. The series probably is not going to make you say oh now i get it (but it might). What it is though, is a journey, a journey into our selves. It's a taste of the parts of us that may not necessarily be so obvious. We can only necessarily nibble at this work, this is what Peter Levine called titration. Its the idea of working with strong chemicals one drop at a time.

Session Outline

S1 On regulation

S2 Regulated mobilization

S3 Regulated immobilization

S4 Glimmers as a doorway

S5 Stress mobilization part 1

S6 Stress mobilization part 2

S7 Stress immobilization

S8 Adaptive re-tuning, and un-re-tuning

Heads up

This series is slightly brave work. While we approach it in the gentlest way we know how, the inquiry almost of necessity prods our old messaging and patterns of behavior. Even though those patterns might not serve us, disturbing them has the potential for some dysregulation to show up.

In order to sign up for this work, it is highly recommended that you come at this with some capacity to hold your inner world with some lightness and distance. Each participant is called to hold their own process of regulation and making mindful visits to their edges.

The good news is that we will be using our tried and tested pair listening processes. This protects us from fixing, advising, judging, explaining and all that stuff, as we have grown used to from our AR practice. We will also be including some embodied practice to keep bringing our bodies to a home base of regulation.

How to join the calls

The first session is:

Tue, 10 Mar 2026, 18:00 - America/Los_Angeles (PST/PDT)

Tue, 10 Mar 2026, 21:00 - America/New_York (EST/EDT)

Wed, 11 Mar 2026, 02:00 - Europe/Berlin (CET/CEST)

Wed, 11 Mar 2026, 09:00 - Asia/Singapore (+08)

Wed, 11 Mar 2026, 12:00 - Australia/Sydney (AEDT/AEST)

Wed, 11 Mar 2026, 14:00 - Pacific/Auckland (NZDT/NZST)

We'd love it if you could, well ahead of time, read the practice guidelines. You'll need a user account, then you can join the calls using the schedule.

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