Why you should know your state?

And How We Can Be Unaware of the State We’re In

The thing about state is we often don’t know we are in one, and yet we are. It’s running us, even if we feel like we’re in control; it’s often not the case.

Why Should We Know Our State?

I’ll try to make a compelling case that this should be a top priority item for daily living. Because state shows up in every moment of our lives and determines our capacity for creative response to what life brings.

What Are the States?

According to polyvagal theory, we have three distinctive states, but it’s better to see all three as co-emerging, with one being more dominant.

Deb Dana, who is the leading translator of Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory for general and clinical audiences, describes the three autonomic states of the nervous system as follows:

• Ventral Vagal (Safe & Connected): This state is characterised by feelings of safety, connection, and social engagement. When in ventral vagal, we feel open, curious, and able to communicate effectively. Our body is regulated, and we can engage in relationships and the world with a sense of ease.
• Sympathetic (Fight or Flight): This is the mobilisation state, activated when the nervous system perceives a threat. The sympathetic nervous system prepares us for action—either to fight (defend ourselves) or flee (escape danger). In this state, we may feel anxious, restless, irritable, or overwhelmed, with increased heart rate and tension.
• Dorsal Vagal (Shutdown & Collapse): This is the immobilisation state, activated when a threat feels overwhelming or inescapable. The dorsal vagal system pulls us into shutdown, dissociation, numbness, or depression as a survival response. In this state, we may feel disconnected, drained, hopeless, or frozen, withdrawing from the world and our sense of self.

These states are fluid and hierarchical, meaning we move between them throughout the day, depending on our experiences and perceived safety.

The idea is to notice more quickly when we’re in a protective state and understand what we need to return to the safety and connection of the ventral vagal state. For many of us, especially in modern life, survival and stress have become so normalised that we may have even lost a reference to what safety even feels like inside.

The ongoing practice is about bringing awareness to what is otherwise automatic and unconscious. It’s not our nervous system’s fault that it’s moving us into these stressful cycles. It’s a misreading of the environment and other people that is rooted in the past. Had we resolved those difficult and overwhelming experiences of our childhood and beyond, we would have much more of an experience of safety inside. Not all that different from a meal you digested well—there is no residual left over.

Look to nature: prey animals are under threat on an ongoing basis, yet in the wild, they do not get traumatised. Why? Because there is no mind that gets in the way of the body. After an animal goes through a survival response—fight, flight, or freeze—it does the most obvious thing before it can acclimatise back in the herd. It discharges, releases all that energy that got mobilised for survival. The animal often shakes, tremors, releases the activation cycle, and returns to homeostasis.

How we are different is that we don’t get taught to follow the body and often hold in all that energy, so that even decades later, the same cues trigger those sensations. And again, typically, no one shows us how to befriend them and allow them to complete their cycles.

In modern life, we likely shift between these states more often than we realise. When we’re in them, it can feel as though we become fully immersed, losing the ability to observe ourselves. The key is to step back and notice the sensations and energies in the body, as it communicates our state through the language of sensation. Our state shapes our perspective and brings a subjective experience. The body feels a certain way, and these sensations can be difficult to stay with—often leading us to resist or struggle against the state we are in.

The key point is that when we are in a stress response or a protective state, we are not in a place that supports connection. Life feels harder, so it makes sense to learn how to shift back to a calm and connected state (ventral vagal), where creative responses come more naturally—it’s a feature of the state itself. The work is to learn to regulate your nervous system by tuning into the sensations in your body and allowing it to communicate what it needs.

Here is a simple exercise to get you started in understanding your state and how it’s moving in your day:

Pause a few times in the day; even a few minutes is enough. Ask yourself, “How is my state?”

Don’t rush to answer; step back and observe. Notice what your body tells you. Look through these words and see which ones are relevant for you. For a few minutes, do the thing that you don’t want to do: stay with them. Allow them and notice, without wanting them to change, how they change on their own. Also, notice the pleasant sensations, as much as you do the unpleasant. And if it feels like it’s all unpleasant, then try to find at least one place in the body that’s neutral or not so active. There will always be an island of calm somewhere in the body.

Here are a few words that may help you identify what’s happening in the body: