We know about “fight or flight” and “rest and digest,” but what if there was a third type of nervous system response? Join functional nutritionist Christine Morgenstern Shin and I as we discuss harmonizing the nervous system through the lens of the Polyvagal Theory.
I’m joined by my functional nutrition colleague Christine Morgenstern Shin to discuss her insights on harmonizing the nervous system through the lens of the Polyvagal Theory. We typically use the terms “fight or flight” and “rest and digest” when discussing the autonomic nervous system, but psychiatrist and neuroscientist Stephen Porges has developed a theory that suggests that there is a third response. The Polyvagal Theory describes the hybrid state of activation and calming that plays a role in our social engagement abilities. In other words, the mind and body work together in response to social cues.
Christine breaks down what the Polyvagal Theory looks like in action and how the autonomic nervous system works almost like a ladder. She shares exercises to get started with exploring the Polyvagal Theory and ways to build awareness around your safety and danger cues. Christine also emphasizes the hope this theory has brought her in terms of her own trauma recovery and stress resiliency. Listen in to learn more about the Polyvagal Theory and how to incorporate it into your healing journey.
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[00:00:00] Dana Frost: Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host, Dana Frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect: conversations about vitality from the inside out with guests experts in the field of health, culture, and spirituality.
And solo episodes along the way from me, where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger while growing older, this is the place for you.
Welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. This is Dana. And I'm your host coming to you this week from Chicago. I'm joined this week by my functional nutrition colleague, Christine Morganstern Shen I invited Christine to share her insights on harmonizing the nervous system through the lens of the polyvagal theory.
You're going to learn exactly what that is. If that's a new word to you, I feel like we can never have too many nervous system hacks in our back pockets. This is going to be a really interesting episode. Now I've been curious about the polyvagal theory because of the testimonies of how it's helped people heal from chronic stress and trauma.
Christine is our nutritionist community is resident expert. So please join me in welcoming, Kristine to the. Well, Christine, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show this week. And I know we've talked about this for a while. Christine is my colleague, my functional nutrition and lifestyle practitioner colleague.
And you know, it's always such a pleasure for me when I get to have one of my colleagues on as many of you know, I've had many of them on, and it's such a pleasure because we have the same. Context for how we practice. And, and yet, even though we have the framework, that's the same, we're all doing different things in the work.
And Christine is coming to us today to share about polyvagal theory. And it's something I have lightly dabbled in, but I've been very curious about because of heart math and she knows a lot more about it. I'm really excited for her to share this body of knowledge with us today. So Christine, welcome to the.
[00:02:23] Christine Morgenstern Shin: Oh, thank you so much, Dana. And I'm really honored that you invited me here and I'm just excited to spend time with you. I
[00:02:30] Dana Frost: did know this sentiment did or the sentiment, so yeah. Christine, tell us a little bit about how you arrived to where you are today. I know that you're a yoga. I think trauma informed yoga.
Practitioner. I mean, there are so many different things that you do as a practitioner, but how, you know, tell us a little bit about your story.
[00:02:51] Christine Morgenstern Shin: Sure, sure. I been accumulation over about 25 years, so we'll, we'll touch on some highlights that are relative. And I'd like to say in retrospect, if I knew, well, actually if the polyvagal theory existed back then when I was a young adult, the healing could have been much quicker and sooner, but I did have the opportunity.
Um, say three quarters through my healing journey to be introduced to it, which led me to, you know, working with it now. And so I like to preface, you know, my health journey primarily as came from a loving home, had a lot, a lot of fun, maybe too much, uh, through an adult. And the reason why I'm saying that is.
And, and it's easier to say now, but my days were layered with life-threatening depression and anxiety, and it was something I hid, everybody knew fun, Christine, you know, or Christy at the time. And you know, that started my journey. It didn't know it. And, you know, essentially I looked like a textbook picture of success per se, you know, fun, fitness job, and always pushed by ambition and, and.
You know, all the things now I learned was the wired and tired feeling and trying to get that external pat on the back, things of that nature that led me to my, when my health bucket spilled over per se, we should say. And, and essentially cognitively neurologically, um, of course mental health challenges, structurally things started falling apart.
You know, I went from CrossFit to being frozen in a chair. Not being able to move, you know, crying, rolling off, sleeping on a mattress on the floor. I lost eyesight for half a day. I mean, just really bizarre things, you know, drank a sip of water, got the pregnant belly and, you know, fast forward went to six or seven allopathic, uh, specialists, doctors.
And, um, the end result was, you know, you have IBS and you need to see a mental health professional, which I was already seeing. Anyhow. Right. That was very frustrating. Fast forward more. I got a. So I, I learned about the, you know, the world of functional medicine and nutrition of course went back to school.
Um, I was diagnosed with chronic mold, a late stage Lyme, a couple of Lyme co-infections and then eventually, um, SIBO, which is small intestinal, bacterial overgrowth. And a lot of times those three lovely conditions tend to go together. And with all that being said, I. Um, want to preface that I had been on RX for depression, anxiety, ADHD for 20 plus years.
So you might've imagined. How my gut health was and CBO and, and other, other things, you know, that, you know, as a practitioner. And so this, believe it or not led me to the polyvagal theory because I couldn't move, I wanted to do CrossFit and I ended up starting yoga, you know? And yoga. When I say yoga, I mean the whole world of meditation, visualization, mindfulness, you know, movement, so on and so forth.
And then also the principles of functional medicine. So between the two, I started finding answers and fast forward to where I am today. I am happy to say off of all, my RX is a 2015. I titrated off to. And I'm not advocating people to do that or not. This is, I'm just sharing my health journey. I had the desire as a person, a practitioner, just to feel like, what does it feel like in my body to just be in my body, you know, like not be on any prescription medication, you know?
And that was just a, it's a self-discovery type situation. And I, and I really. Through this whole process have discovered my authentic self and you know, the name of my company is radiant heart. And that's what it means, you know, healing from the inside out and living your authentic self. And so moved to the polyvagal theory.
I was fortunate enough to meet a yoga therapist. Didn't even know you, a yoga therapist existed that occupation existed. And learned about this theory and the reason why I wanted to tell my story is I'm so passionate that it shouldn't have taken me eight years, like eight years from when I got diagnosed to when I was healed, we're always healing.
Right. But functional. And so that's why I want to share it. And I learned. Combining the world of Eastern traditions from to all of this, um, that I'm studying specifically, uh, for mental health. And, um, it's amazing how specific even the breath work could be. For say someone with anxiety feeling stuck compared to someone that has anxiety from the mania.
It's so, so specific this, this world of Eastern tradition. So I am just really grateful that I'm able to share it with people.
[00:07:52] Dana Frost: Well, Christine, thank you for sharing that. And as you were sharing your story, it just made me, you know, really appreciate for all of us, that healing is not linear. It is a journey and there's no quick fix.
And the other thing, when you were talking about, you wanted to feel yourself in your body, without the medication you had been on medication for 20, how long did you say 20 plus years? 20 plus years. On and off. And so we know from the functional lens that we like to clear the muddy waters and we want it, what are we really dealing with?
And I love that you highlighted that because I think it's really important for us to appreciate that we need to have contact with. Who we are, what is happening in the physical body at any moment? How we, what is our perception of what's happening? How do we feel about what's happening? What's the narrative that we're attaching to what's happening.
And when we are under the influence of external chemicals, Really aren't nature. We'll just say nature based. And then this is no negative to medication, but just to appreciate that the human body recognizes things that come from nature and it doesn't metabolize or recognize as easily things that don't come from nature.
And I just, I don't, I'm really appreciating that you shared that you wanted to see what, how it really felt to be in your physical
[00:09:31] Christine Morgenstern Shin: body. Yeah, no, I appreciate you saying that. And I was open. I was open to if I did feel unstable or whatever it may be, you know, to, to experience the other direction. And thankfully it, you know, eight, eight years is a decent amount of time that I tried almost every holistic alternative modality.
Like many people have under the sun to get to where I am today. But I tell you if you're out there, it was well worth it. And this is where now I'm working with individuals that, you know, on the science and of course, right, with functional nutrition. And then now on the spiritual Eastern, in, you know, and with yoga therapy.
But I, I layered in how to create sustainable behavioral change. And we'll talk about that a little today because it starts with the polyvagal theory. And because I am so happy that I found a solution to help people. To not just heal, but just to be able to sustain it and then go on and hopefully enhance their life and thrive, you know?
[00:10:35] Dana Frost: Yeah. That's, that is wonderful. Well, let's just get into it. Where would you like to start? Sure.
[00:10:41] Christine Morgenstern Shin: Um, let me first define what is the polyvagal Berry, right? It's a great place to start. Yeah, exactly. And we'll keep this all high level and I'd like to hopefully provide just some really. Real life examples, you know, so hopefully we can have some people can connect with it, but essentially the polyvagal theory is an updated map of your autonomic nervous system.
And a lot of times practitioners will explain your autonomic nervous system consists of the sympathetic fight or flight, right. And the parasympathetic state rest and digest resting. And that is in fact, correct. Also though it's like, and there's, there's more layers to it. There's a lot of combinations and blended states and it goes beyond that.
Okay. And so the stories that our clients tell themselves about like who they are, what the world is essentially the lens they're looking through. This begins in the autonomic nervous system, which when I first learned that I thought was absolutely amazing because most of us, and I'll just say Westerners in general, we think it's all from our head.
Right. You know, beliefs, our thoughts starts in the head. Well, essentially it starts in your autonomic nervous system. The messages travel up to the brain and then the brain essentially creates a story to make sense of what just happened in the body. And so this is very empowering information because if somebody has past trauma and they're not understanding.
Why they're reacting, how they're reacting. This is allowing us and Dr. Stephen Porges is the doctor that discovered the polyvagal theory discovered that knowing this and knowing that there's a predictable hierarchy of how things occur. We now, as practitioners can empower clients to be able to navigate and regulate their nervous system.
And this opens up the doors of just really helping the mental health epidemic, you know, it's just, I'm just really passionate about it. So in terms of getting more back to the science, your body speeds. To the brain 80 20, so 80% compared to the 20%. Right? So a lot of the work I'll do is bottom, bottom up approach.
I do both, but just, you know, might as well get a bang for our buck. Right. And working with that and to get back to the, the state, you know, the state has helps first well, in order to change our story, we need to have the ability to change our state. And so think of this, you know, three. We're in the autonomic nervous system feels we're in a state.
This moves up to the brain to create the story, the story, the thoughts, the beliefs then creates some type of mindset, right? In order to have a behavioral shift, we need to be able to move from the mindset shift to the behavioral shift, and then we can evoke sustainable change. So it all starts. With our autonomic nervous system.
And so this was really helpful when working with folks that have a habit from 20 years ago and they want to evoke change and release it, you know? Yeah.
[00:13:49] Dana Frost: So Christine, can you give us an example from your life? So when you say in the autonomic nervous system, Because for some people that doesn't for practitioners, you know, we hide, we are, the light bulb goes off on what that means, but tell us, you know, for the average person out there, how are they going to know in the autonomic nervous?
[00:14:09] Christine Morgenstern Shin: Sure. I'll describe this as a ladder. And so the, and just think there's three rungs, top, middle, and lower. These are the main states of your autonomic nervous system. So the top is called the ventral vagal, but don't worry about the words. Just think safety and connection. So if a person will feel that in their body, they'll still feel safe, connected, and they'll have curiosity about the world.
If they're in the middle state and that top state is actually in parasympathetic. Okay. The middle state is called sympathetic. It's a system of mobilization. So this is where there's action. It's not necessarily good or bad. It's just how our nervous system reacts. So a lot of times people term it as. And so then the bottom, if somebody feels depressed, say, or they might be happy, but they're, they're at work and they can't figure out a problem.
So they start tensing up and everything sweating. Like they, like, I want to figure it out. They've been working on it for an hour. You're in it's what's called dorsal vagal. That's the third state that's also in the parasympathetic. So parasympathetic isn't necessarily good either, right? It's just a state.
Well, the
[00:15:23] Dana Frost: way that we frame it in heart math is that, and my listeners will be familiar with this depleting emotions. We say, you can say states or fueling and both happen in parasympathetic and sympathy.
[00:15:36] Christine Morgenstern Shin: Correct. Exactly. And, and heart math is a beautiful, beautiful modality to go to it just, it it's married to this polyvagal.
Right? And so also there's blended states. So if somebody is say dancing or playing soccer, that would be a blend of the top state safety and connection. And then the middle state, which is mobilization. If somebody is doing yoga nidra, Meditation cuddling. They're cuddling. That is a blend of the top state and the bottom state.
So they feel safe, but yet they're not they're mobile. They're not mobile mobile. Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense. Yes it does. And so these are hopefully, you know, real life examples. The last one is called fawn or fawning, and that's if the middle state your mobilization. Is blended with the mobilization.
This happens typically in two instances, either a, someone might be a victim say for example of abuse and they're essentially mirroring the actions of others in order to seek approval, or someone might be a people-pleasing. Which I've been there at one point where you're, you're numbing the situation.
It's essentially numbing and on autopilot. So you're avoiding essentially what you need to work on and on auto autopilot. Cause you're, you're pleasing. So it's almost, you could be in that wired and tired situation. So we, we move through this ladder all day long. It's a natural thing. We can't stop it.
This is the stress response. The key would be, which I help people get to the intention. The goal is to have a healthy, nervous system. Of course you can avoid any of these states that's nature, but you would be able to shift between them to fit whatever circumstance is healthy and reasonable does that.
It
[00:17:36] Dana Frost: makes a lot of sense. It, it shows, I think when you get to that, it, it shows a resilience because to be human is to fluctuate and all those, as you say, all those different rungs of the ladder. Throughout the day you're going to be moving and moving in and out of all those different phases and the ability to do that with a coherent system, I think that's what you're where, where you're
[00:18:04] Christine Morgenstern Shin: guiding people.
Absolutely. And say, for example, heart math would be, could be one of the modalities to get you there. It's just, everyone's going to take something different and, you know, Working with, from the it, the beautiful thing is whether it's yoga therapy or functional medicine, it's like, it's the same language. So we look at the whole person and just see, you know, maybe they would use art to do this.
Maybe they would do journaling. Maybe they would sing. Like it really doesn't matter. And that's part of the beauty of it that you can personalize it, you know, for whoever the PR they essentially personalize it for themselves. You know, if that makes sense.
[00:18:45] Dana Frost: It does make sense. Yeah. So what would be the signal to someone that this would be an important theory to engage with?
[00:18:58] Christine Morgenstern Shin: So in general, Any type of mental health condition would be advantageous because it helps you become empowered to make friends with that condition or live alongside it or work through it, whatever it may be for you. Right. It's very helpful with PTSD, with trauma and. From a physical standpoint and say from a feeling, if someone doesn't feel like they're grounded or centered, they feel like their moods are very sporadic and it's hard to, to, you know, I act out and I don't know why, you know?
Um, and then it might spiral and they don't know how to bring it back in. You know? So anything along those lines would be really advantageous.
[00:19:45] Dana Frost: It makes me think of, um, mood dysregulation. If you're struggling with mood dysregulation, this is a really, or as you said,
[00:19:54] Christine Morgenstern Shin: PTSD. Well, yeah, it's amazing. Even something light, not light.
I shouldn't say light, like going, I was going to say light, like going through perimenopause or menopause. Don't see light. Exactly. But, um, if we're going through that wonderful experience, it could be helpful. Or you could be at the top of your game. But maybe have stage fright and want to be able to shift before you walk on stage.
So, or it could be, you know, a childhood trauma, like it's one. That's why I think like, gosh, this is as fundamental as balancing your blood sugar or having fundamental sleep, you know, great digestion it's it really is
[00:20:33] Dana Frost: well because it's a nervous system. And so it really is what brings everything together.
The nervous system is the way. The mind body system is woven together. And so it's valuable for
[00:20:50] Christine Morgenstern Shin: all of us. Yeah, no, I agree. Completely. I teach about the three brains, you know, the head brain heart-brain gut-brain and how, when it's in harmony, things are usually very flowing and when it's not, and, um, and people tend to, once they grasp the concept, they it's really fulfilling for me because I see how empowering it is once.
Really does have it down, you know, and they can look in a vote when they, when they call and go, I, I shifted, you know, that's like beautiful, you know,
[00:21:20] Dana Frost: it works with, um, you know, we tend to, it just, I just have this flashback to when I was in a very serious marriage crisis and I had, I already had all of these tools and I remember moving through that crisis.
It was. Really one of the harder things I've ever gone through. And yet, even though I was experiencing a lot of depleting emotions, it was a very hard experience. I was coherent in it. I was in it. And so it actually means in the midst of something that could be very traumatizing and difficult, you can still.
The coherent and in it, and your nervous system can be processing what's happening. And in essence, not hold onto it because I think what happens if we don't have the tools. When we're going through something that's really difficult and we don't have the tools to move through it. That's when it can become lodged in our tissues.
And what I think you're saying is that this is a tool so that you can be present with whatever is coming up in the moment. Guide and direct yourself to whatever is
[00:22:38] Christine Morgenstern Shin: needed in the moment. No, absolutely. I mean, you're, you're essentially finding peace amongst the chaos from a nervous system standpoint. And with when reference a trauma, when someone goes through something horrific, if they reveal, resolve the stress soon afterwards, there isn't any trauma.
Exactly what you're saying. If you allow your body to move through the stress cycle, right. If we don't have time or the support or the knowledge to go through that natural stress cycle, that's when things get stored and that's when, wherever it may, 20 years later, that's that smell reminds you of something from 10 years ago, you know, and then the nervous system reacts.
The empowering thing is now through Dr. Porges. Now we're able to understand how to shift and, and that's to me. So incredibly empowering. And the great thing is you can do this at home. It's just like working a muscle. And the more you shift from up, you know, up and down the ladder, the more it'll remember, just like almost essentially everything else we do in our body.
Right. And I'd love to share a couple of, you know, wasted so people could get started if that's,
[00:23:48] Dana Frost: I would love that. Yes, absolutely. Please do
[00:23:50] Christine Morgenstern Shin: share. So first you want to have that. Like the beautiful question you asked me, like, how do people know? Right. So in order to be aware of some, some avenues we go down, it might be journaling.
It might be drawing, might be dance movement, right? So you have choices and this would be one exercise you could do. You could. Essentially, if you were drawing, you could draw a three different trees, for example, to represent the three different main rungs on the ladder, like forget the blended states at this point.
Right. And, and it's really interesting to see what comes up, you know, there's big roots, big flowers, whatever it may be. Right. Or someone could journal about it and describe, you always want to be in a safe place when you do any of these exercises and then same thing with movement and dance. And, and these are different things I'll, I'll do together, you know, with, with my client.
And once you're aware of. And it might seem so simple. Oh, I understand what you're saying, but the whole thing is that self embodiment. Right? So if, if you people process their feelings differently, so maybe drawing for you might be a home run, whereas I'd rather move my limbs, if that makes sense. Right.
And so. Uh, second exercise would be okay. Now I understand what it is. You would write down a list of danger cues and safety cues. And so this is definitely recommended to be done when you're in ventral vagal state, when you're in that safe. So you're not triggered. Of course. And these cues are unique to each one of us.
So a danger shooting me might be different than to you. Right. So it's really important to write them down, get to know them, add to it, you know, things, you know, from that standpoint, And then just say, we're in dorsal, vagal, we're at the bottom. And we'll use a nice example where we had that problem at the office.
Right. Once, you know, you might go to your safety too. Cause we want safety cues bring you up the ladder danger cues, bring you down the letter. Right? So what we can do is you maybe walk out of the room just for example, and we want to go into sympathetic because we can't jump the rungs. Okay. It doesn't matter how cool you are or how smart you are.
You cannot jump the rungs. So you might share. Cry pushups, sit ups, jump up and down, run in place, whatever I hit a pillow, just some movement that will bring you from dorsal to sympathetic. And now we ultimately want to get to ventral vagal. Right? So then you might choose a stimulating activity from your.
Safety to list, right? Singing, having your tea, warming with a blanket, breathing, chanting, whatever type of modality, heart math, right? Whatever type of modality that you connect with. And, you know, within seconds you can get there. Is that helpful?
[00:26:40] Dana Frost: That is. Yeah. You know? Um, so this is why I wanted to have you on is just to eliminate the polyvagal theory.
The way that I've engaged with it is really around movement and chanting.
[00:26:53] Christine Morgenstern Shin: Oh, nice.
[00:26:53] Dana Frost: Okay. Yeah. And the, the chanting aspect. In our Western culture, we're not as exposed to it, but it has such a powerful impact on moving. I've never heard it described the way that you're describing it, but I have heard it connected with polyvagal theory.
And I know for myself, I can feel. The shifts in chanting. So that's
[00:27:18] Christine Morgenstern Shin: beautiful that the chanting or the drumming, you know, a lot of that happens to come out and Eastern traditions. Right. And so, and whether it's on zoom or if there's a group of people or as, you know, the heart coherence, it's all going to connect and it, and it's, it's even more powerful, you know, in terms of the, the shifting,
[00:27:38] Dana Frost: I like what you're just encouraging people to have.
Uh, list and to be aware, what are the go-to activities? As you said, movement, we need some sort of action to shift us. What are those actions that we can take? And I don't know if this is true. With polyvagal theory, but I always encourage my clients. And even for myself have just one thing, you don't have to have a long list, but you need one thing that, you know, this is in my back pocket.
I can go to this and I know what's going to help me shift.
[00:28:13] Christine Morgenstern Shin: No, I totally agree. And literally it could be crying. Like that could be the action, you know, you might be on the couch and depressed and, and it's too much to get up, you know, um, that literally could be your action. So, and is the point
[00:28:28] Dana Frost: then to have the awareness in the moment of it?
Because sometimes I think we, I can remember a time in my life where there were a lot of tears and we can tend to think that that's negative. But when we bring the awareness to, we realized that's just releasing. That's letting go. So it's really shifting the way we see some of, even some of the actions.
Is that true?
[00:28:53] Christine Morgenstern Shin: Oh, a hundred percent now. And I love that you brought that up because reframing a lot of what we grew up with. Maybe our perception compared to. How we can actually help ourselves in self care and love ourselves is two different two different lenses, you know? So, no, that's a really good point because a lot of people might shut off this work because, oh, I don't want to cry.
Right. This is bad. Right?
[00:29:20] Dana Frost: Yeah. And not recognize, or just to bring the awareness that so many of the natural tendencies that come forth from the Bible. They actually are coming forth to aluminate something for us to bring our awareness so that we can, the body is seeking homeostasis. It wants to let go of trauma.
It wants to release when something happens, it actually wants to receive the good things. And, you know, I think it's really, really about awareness and, and softening around the things that maybe feel depleting, but realize that. Sometimes that's just where we are. Sometimes we actually are in a parasympathetic mode that is, that feels depleting because something, you know, that's happened in our life, you know, we've lost somebody with
[00:30:15] Christine Morgenstern Shin: and it's okay.
Like the goal. So the disclaimer is not to always live in ventral vagal, and that's not real life. Right. It's just to be able to modulate well in between whatever, whatever fits that particular. Circumstance, you know? And so if somebody is grieving, their body is needing to be in that grieving state. So they can eventually process, like you're saying and move, move through it a hundred percent.
And with the work I do here, I want to express, there's so much hope for recovery because, you know, as you know, neuroplasticity, you know, we're, our brains are constantly growing and rewiring and we can build our natural stress response in terms of getting to a state where we have the stress resilience and.
And a lot of people haven't thought about, I think this lends yet, and it's, it has a lot to do with community and creating that environment and, and really being curious. It doesn't matter what state you're in, just being curious, letting it happen. And then of course, layering in all those activities that bring you to ventral bagel.
And I think, and this is just my personal opinion. I think we're recovering. Like more from a sick society. Not that we have these internal defects. And I think it's hard for a lot of people. We, you know, if there's a man, especially with mental health, we have that shame, right. We put a lot, I had a lot of shame for a long time and, and so happy that I released it.
And I think it's common. You know, I think it's common that that's happened and, and hopefully, you know, we can all help people reframe their, their thought processes. 100%,
[00:31:58] Dana Frost: Christine, I think that's just such a beautiful way to end, although I have a few more questions, but we have the capacity, the overwhelming capacity to heal, to shift, to improve what our stress responses.
And we just need to start and look at you. You were on medication for over 20 years on and off, whatever, you know, whatever the situation is. And. I believe built into our human design is resilience and the desire for homeostasis. I already said that once, but our system is seeking homeostasis and when we can collaborate with it, it's just unbelievable how we can shift things in our life.
And, you know, I do believe we're moving away from. Medicating everything because it's not working and people are recognizing, wow, I've been doing this for 10 years for 20 years. And nothing's really changed. Everything's, you know, if anything it's worse. And now my other parts of my physicality are upset.
Like my, now my guts all messed up because I've been doing this for so many years and we're. I really believe people are looking for. What's another way I want to feel. I want to shift the way I feel. I want to feel better. And so I love your story because it's a real testimony to that. Christina, are there any closing comments relative to the polyvagal theory that you would like to leave for people?
[00:33:34] Christine Morgenstern Shin: Sure. What I think is so fascinating and so empowering is that in this work I do with people that you can split, and this is all Eastern tradition, we're slowly catching up. Okay. But there are just as an example, that, and there's, there's way more, but there's 34 breadth techniques. Just basic ones that are very specific for individual health conditions and being able to get that specific and that, and, and, you know, pranayama is just one little piece, right?
We, we do this with the whole entire lifestyle. For somebody to answer and it's simple, we all breathe. Right. And that's free and you can do it on your own to learn how to do this, you know, for whatever it may be, I think is just so extremely empowering. And then we layer in all the other senses, right. And all this is unique to the person.
And once they learn it, they have it for life. And this is all wrapped around the modalities to put the polyvagal theory in practice. Does that make sense? And so I just feel like it's a huge gift, this discovery, and it's not just one way, you know, I'm doing it all different ways and, and you you'll look at it and attach it and do it different ways too, which is another beautiful thing, you know, so people with different backgrounds, practitioners with different backgrounds will be able to read.
Other people have their experience.
[00:35:03] Dana Frost: So where, okay. A couple of questions where if somebody is interested in exploring the polyvagal theory, where would you send them?
[00:35:12] Christine Morgenstern Shin: Sure. I'm to my, uh, website would be easy. It's radiant heart.health.
[00:35:19] Dana Frost: Okay. We'll put that in the show notes. And is there a book that you would recommend.
[00:35:25] Christine Morgenstern Shin: Sure. There's uh, there's, there's a lot of them out there. Stephen Porges. He wrote several I'm visualizing the, um, the cover of our, yeah, the, uh, Deb. Dana has a great exercise. One. I will put those because I'm visualizing three right now. I can give those to you to put in the show notes.
[00:35:43] Dana Frost: Perfect. Okay. And so we know where to find you.
I know you're, you're active on Instagram and what is your Instagram
[00:35:49] Christine Morgenstern Shin: handle? It's my name. It's a little bit of a mouthful, but Christina. Morgan's during chin and, um, I I'd love to extend a complimentary stress-relief superpower guide I have, and that's on the website. They can go. Perfect. Do that. And then I do have a self care, a masterclass coming up in a couple of weeks that if anyone wants to go, it's complimentary, you can just hop on and, and enjoy.
[00:36:14] Dana Frost: Oh, that's awesome. Okay. My final question, do you Christina's what does feeling younger while growing older mean to you?
[00:36:22] Christine Morgenstern Shin: That's a loaded question. Um, my gut instinct is feeling, feeling younger while growing older means to me that you have truly embraced your authentic self and you're aligning your head brain, your heart brain, and your gut brain.
And you're, you're living your passion and helping us. I
[00:36:46] Dana Frost: love it. Thank you so much, Christine. Well, Christine, thank you for joining us this week on the podcast. It was such a
[00:36:51] Christine Morgenstern Shin: pleasure to have, you know, it was my pleasure, Dana. Thank you so much.
[00:36:56] Dana Frost: Thank you for joining me on the Vida U podcast. If you are enjoying these conversations, please hit subscribe and download.
Spread the love with your review and share it with your friends. I want to think Monique for this. Better late than never. I have listened to every one of Dana's vitally you podcast. And I am finally leaving a review. Each one of our podcasts offer the listeners so much wisdom and so many pearls for living younger.
One point and older, I truly cannot pick a favorite episode, whether the episode is a solo one with Dana or an interview with an expert in their field. I anxiously await each weekly. Dana's passion and compassion shines as she explores various heartfelt topics. Thank you, Dana, for putting yourself out there so that we can learn from you with so much gratitude.
Well, Monique, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. As you all know, those ratings and reviews and downloads are what boost podcast in the apple algorithm. So, so much appreciation from my heart to you. Now I want you to check out Christine's upcoming free savvy self care mini masterclass. It is June 20th at 5:00 PM Pacific standard time.
And you're going to find those details in the show notes. Additionally, Christine has a private community it's on Facebook and it's called chronic stress anonymous for high performers and recovering perfectionist. Details. We'll also be in the show notes. We have a couple of free downloads for you this week.
If you haven't yet downloaded my free ebook checklist for daily vitality, you'll find the link in the show notes. And, you know, I created this guide for my clients, from everything I learned during my own health crisis. You can also download Christine's complimentary stress-relief guide. It includes three bonus brains.
It's an easy to apply toolkit stress-relief superpowers and see how you can reduce your anxiety in five minutes or less. You are going to find that download in the show notes. And I want to say as always, I am streaming love from my heart to yours. Thank you so much for joining us this week. .