Polyvagal Theory & Adverse Religious Experiences

Let's talk about Polyvagal Theory and it's relationship to adverse religious experiences. Polyvagal Theory provides a map of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), defining how this system shapes experiences of safety and impacts our ability for connection. The stories you tell about yourself about who you are and how the world works begin in the ANS.

For a more in-depth intro to Polyvagal Theory, check out the article Polyvagal Theory 101.

Adverse Religious Experiences (AREs) are any experience of a religious belief, practice, or structure that undermines an individual or community's sense of safety or autonomy and/or negatively impacts their physical, social, emotional, relational, sexual, or psychological well-being. These experiences have the potential of resulting in religious trauma.

For a more in-depth discussion of Religious Trauma and Adverse Religious Experiences, check out the article Religious Trauma & Adverse Religious Experiences.

But back to the nervous system…

Adverse Religious Experiences (AREs) are one way to describe experiences that happen in a spiritual or religious context that may be interpreted by our Autonomic Nervous System as cues of danger or threats to our survival or ability to maintain safe connections with the people around us. When our ANS detects danger in our environment (religious or otherwise), it has very skillful ways of protecting us from harm, keeping us alive, and allowing us to maintain connections with the beings around us. All of this protection happens in our nervous system and in our bodies, below the level of conscious awareness.

If you read my first article on Polyvagal Theory, you may remember this image, outlining the different branches of the Autonomic Nervous System:

So how do Adverse Religious Experiences (AREs) fit in here?

In nervous system terms, we can define AREs as an experience of a religious belief, practice, or structure that elicits a threat response from our nervous system. Cues of danger from religious or spiritual settings can come in all different forms, including, but not limited to:

• Being told your body is bad

• Being taught to distrust your emotions

• Believing you are inherently sinful

• Physical or sexual abuse

• Fear of eternal damnation

• Being taught that your gender and/or sexual identities are wrong

AREs vary tremendously depending on who you are as a person, the context and family in which you've grown up in, your identities, your privilege, your culture, etc.

Your nervous system operates like a ladder. Your experiences change as you move up and down the ladder, experiencing a sense of safety and connection when firmly grounded in the parasympathetic ventral vagal branch of the ANS. When our nervous system detects danger, the sympathetic branch is activated, sending us into fight or flight mode. If we are able to take action (leave the dangerous situation or fight back), we may be able to move back into the ventral branch. However, if we are not able to take action, if all else fails, the dorsal vagal branch of the parasympathetic nervous system is activated, leading us into a state of shut-down, collapse, and disconnection.

Adverse Religious Experiences can include (but are not limited to):

• The experience of being shamed or humilaited in a religious setting

• Verbal, physical, sexual, or emotional abuse in a religious context

• Being treated differently or passed over due to your gender, race, sexual orientation, or social status, in a religious setting

• Being encouraged to disconnect from your bodily sensations and emotions

• Believing that you are inherently bad and sinful

• Fear of eternal damnation and separation from your community/family

• Being excluded from religious activities

AREs might be experienced as a single, adverse event. But more often, they are experienced as ongoing beliefs or experiences that happen over time within the context of relationships.

Polyvagal theory tells us that our nervous systems are taking in information through neuroception (i.e., perception without awareness) our whole lives, and the foundation of our nervous system is developing in infancy and childhood.

Adverse religious experiences often happen at a young age (and are often ongoing), at the time when our nervous system is developing and making sense of the world around us. If we experience AREs on an ongoing basis, it is likely that our nervous systems will become stuck in threat responses. They may have not learned what safety really feels like.

However, you do not need to have experienced AREs at a young age to have a response in your nervous system. Any adverse experience, religious or otherwise, has the potential to impact our nervous system if we are unable to access safety.

AREs often lead to a dorsal vagal response. Here's why:

You might remember that when we experience danger, our body's first response is through the sympathetic pathway (fight or flight). If we are able to take action or remove ourselves from the dangerous situation, we are more likely to be able to return to safety (i.e., grounded in the ventral vagal pathway). If we are unable to take action or leave a situation, if we feel trapped, our dorsal vagal pathway becomes activated and we shut-down, collapse, dissociate and/or disconnect from the world around us and our bodies.

If you grew up experiencing ongoing, chronic adverse religious experiences, it is very unlikely that you were unable to leave or take action. AREs often happen in the context of family & community. When we are young, our families are not only our primary source of connection, they are also our primary source of survival. Many people, like myself, who grew up in religious families didn't have anyone outside of the religious community to turn to for support, or even another perspective on how life could be. It is impossible to escape or fight back (in fact, we might not even know on a cognitive level that we are experiencing danger and therefore don’t know to fight back or flee).

Even if we don't cognitively sense that we are in danger, our bodies will hold this information for us. If we can't fight back and we can't leave (both of those things would threaten our survival), our nervous system protects us in the only way it knows how: collapse and disconnection from our bodies, emotions, and inner wisdom.

If you have a history of AREs and currently have chronic health issues, experience symptoms of depression, feel hopeless and alone, mistrust your body or emotions, please know that you make sense. Your nervous system did the best it could to keep you safe.

It is absolutely vital to understand AREs in the context of your nervous system, because this is where harm first occurred and where healing needs to happen.

Yes, you can cognitively deconstruct old, toxic beliefs and doctrines (and that is so important!). But your body was necessarily part of the experience of harm and needs to be part of the experience of healing.

In addition to individual therapy, one of the ways that I support people in healing their nervous systems from the bottom up (i.e., starting in your body rather than your mind) is through Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY). You can learn more about this modality on my Trauma Sensitive Yoga page, and you are welcome to join me in-person if you are located in the greater Boston/South Shore/Cape Cod area of Massachusetts. If you are not local to Massachusetts, you can also find a TCTSY facilitator near you by searching the TCTSY database.

There are so many different ways to heal your body and your nervous system, and you can choose the path that suits you best. In fact, having choices and feeling empowered to make the choice that works for you is an incredibly important step in healing.