Medicine Wheel Maps Your Nervous System Healing

Language: en | Source: Medicine_Wheel_Maps_Your_Nervous_System_Healing.m4a

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Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we synthesize stacks of research to give you the ultimate

shortcut to being well-informed. Today we are doing something pretty ambitious.

I’d say so. We’re connecting the ancient wisdom of the shamanic medicine wheel

with, well, cutting-edge neuroscience. It really does sound like a stretch at first,

doesn’t it? Spiritual metaphors and lab data. Right.

But the synergy is just astonishing. We’re pulling from polyvagal theory, fear circuit research,

metacognition studies. All to show that the medicine wheel’s four directions.

They actually map onto distinct neural systems. Precisely. Systems that are crucial for survival,

for growth, for, well, for everything. So that’s the mission for this Deep Dive.

We’re using modern brain science to validate what indigenous healers have known for millennia.

Exactly. They were essentially mapping the human nervous system long before we had fMRIs.

Without the jargon. Without any of the jargon. And they understood that healing has to be

sequential. You have to follow the map.

A system of neural integration, moving from the body right up to consciousness.

You got it. You can’t skip the base layers.

OK. So let’s start at that base layer. Let’s start in the south.

The south. This is the serpent.

Symbolizing the body’s wisdom. What does that mean in shamanic terms?

It’s all about transformation. The serpent sheds its skin, right?

To release the old.

Yes. To release old stories, old traumas that are stored literally in our tissues, in our

nervous system. So the south is really all about the autonomic nervous system.

And that brings us straight to Stephen Porges and polyvagal theory.

It does. A perfect match.

For anyone who needs a quick refresh, how does that theory lay out our different biological

states?

So Porges describes three states, and they’re hierarchical, layered by evolution.

At the very top, the newest system is the ventral vagal state.

The ventral vagal.

Think of this as the medicine state.

It’s your safe zone.

Where you can rest, connect.

Connect. Create.

Feel safe.

Spiritual.

When that system is online, you’re good.

Okay, so that’s the goal. But what happens when we sense danger?

Then we drop down the ladder. The next level down is the classic sympathetic state.

Fate or flight.

The gas pedal. Total mobilization for survival.

Shamanically, this is the wound being stuck in that anxiety loop.

And then there’s an even deeper state, one they called soul loss.

And that’s the oldest, most primitive layer.

Yeah.

The dorsal vagal state.

The freeze response.

It’s a freeze, a collapse, a defilement.

Defensive shutdown.

Yeah.

Like an opossum playing dead.

When you can’t fight or run.

Exactly. It’s this profound disconnection.

Yeah.

And soul loss is just the perfect term for how that feels.

This is where that serpent metaphor gets so scientifically elegant.

It really does.

The serpent, a reptile, represents those ancient circuits.

But then we evolved into social mammals.

And that evolution involved integrating that new system, the ventral vagus, with the muscles of the face, the head, and the heart.

Creating the social engagement system.

Precisely.

And the key thing to get here is that safety isn’t a thought.

It’s a feeling detected unconsciously.

Through a process called, what was it?

Neuroception.

Neuroception.

Okay, pause on that.

If I’m not consciously deciding if I’m safe, how does my nervous system know?

Think of it like a subconscious lie detector.

It’s constantly scanning for risk.

What’s it scanning for?

Tiny cues.

The tone of your voice.

The prosody.

The look on your face.

Is your voice sing-song?

Inmalicious?

Melodic?

Or is it flat and monotone?

A monotone voice can signal danger.

To your nervous system, absolutely.

Even if you’re saying, everything is fine, the lack of vocal inflection is a threat cue.

It’s fascinating.

Well, the practical work of the South must be about training your nervous system to feel safe.

It is.

And this is why things like rhythmic drumming, chanting, even paced breathing, they work.

They’re not just symbolic.

Not at all.

They are scientifically backed ways to improve your vision.

They’re based on the vagal tone.

You’re directly stimulating the vagus nerve and restoring that baseline of safety.

You have to regulate the body first.

Okay, so once we’ve embodied that safety in the South, we’ve built the container.

Now you have the container to do the next piece of work.

Which is moving to the West.

The realm of the jaguar.

The jaguar.

The spiritual warrior who has to face the shadow.

Ancestral wounds.

The parts of ourselves we don’t want to look at.

It’s about stepping into fear.

And neurologically, that takes us right into the limbic system.

Specifically, the amygdala.

The brain’s fear alarm.

Yeah, Joseph Ledoux’s work really put the amygdala on the map as the hub for fear memory.

And this is so important.

Yeah.

You can only face the jaguar if the serpent feels safe.

Absolutely crucial.

If you try to process trauma when you’re already in fight or flight, you just re-traumatize yourself.

The ventral vagal state provides the context.

It provides the you are safe now signal that lets the brain engage with that old fear without freaking out.

Let’s get into the mechanics of that.

The famous low road and high road.

Right.

So the low road is the super fast shortcut.

Sensory info goes straight from the thalamus to the amygdala.

Bypassing the thinking brain.

Completely.

It’s responsible for that physical jolt of fear.

You jump before you even know why.

The shamanic parallel being an unconscious wound.

A perfect parallel.

It’s an automatic trauma-driven reaction.

So if I see a stick and my low road screams snake, that’s the wound firing.

How does the jaguar use the high road to deal with that?

The high road.

The high road allows for conscious integration.

The information goes through the cortex first.

For analysis.

For detailed analysis.

The cortex can then tell the amygdala, hey, stand down, it’s just the stick.

The jaguar’s work is all about strengthening that high road.

Bringing conscious awareness to those automatic reactions.

Yes.

And this is why exposure therapy works.

You’re leveraging neuroplasticity.

You’re actually rewriting the memory.

It’s called memory reconsolidation.

When you recall a traumatic memory in a safe context.

A ventral vagal state.

The brain can learn to recognize it.

The brain can literally integrate new information into it.

It’s editing the fear file.

Before we leave the West, we have to touch on this idea of healing seven generations back and forward.

I mean, does science actually back that up?

It absolutely does.

Through epigenetics.

So trauma can be inherited.

We now know that the epigenetic transmission of stress is real.

Things like famine, war.

They don’t just affect one person.

They can alter gene expression in ways that impact the stress responses of their children and their children’s

children.

Wow.

So the jaguar’s shadow work, it has huge stakes.

Immense.

You’re potentially breaking a cycle for generations to come.

Okay.

So we’ve found safety.

We’ve processed the fear.

We now move to the north.

The hummingbird.

The mythic realm.

New stories.

New meaning.

Exactly.

The hummingbird takes the impossible journey to drink the sweetest nectar.

It’s about finding value.

Creating a new personal mythology.

And this is the domain of the prehistoric world.

The prefrontal cortex, the PFC.

The brain’s executive suite.

Specifically, the lateral PFC, which controls emotion through two main tools.

Controlling attention and, this is the big one, reappraisal.

Reappraisal.

So changing the meaning of something.

Yes.

Seeing a failure not as the end, but as a lesson.

But here’s the thing.

That’s not just about willpower, is it?

No.

And this is the critical insight, the nectar.

Cognitive control isn’t just brute force.

The PFC binds the rule like, I should

eat healthy with the emotional value of the outcome.

So if I just try to force myself into a new habit, I’ll fail.

Usually, yeah.

But if I can genuinely connect with the value,

the nectar of feeling vibrant and healthy, the control becomes almost automatic.

Exactly.

Transformation is motivated by perceived value.

The hummingbird seeks the sweetness, and that’s what sustains the journey.

That really shifts the focus from just stopping negative thoughts

to actively building positive ones.

And the neuroscience supports this, too.

The left lateral PFC.

The left lateral PFC is specifically involved

in enhancing positive emotional experiences.

So not just turning down the anxiety, but turning up the joy.

Turning up the joy, the gratitude, the inspiration.

You’re actively curating a life narrative that feels good,

not just one that’s less painful.

So the north is about integrating logic and heart.

It is, integrating what they call cool cognition,

like doing a math problem with hot cognition,

which is all about your values and emotions.

Getting them aligned.

Getting them aligned.

OK.

In the continental direction, we turn to the east.

The eagle.

Flying high, seeing the whole pattern.

This is the witness consciousness.

It’s the ability to step back and just observe your own thinking.

In brain terms, this is metacognition.

Thinking about thinking.

Thinking about thinking, yeah.

And monitoring and evaluating your own cognitive processes.

And which part of the brain gives us this eagle eye view?

That would be the rostral lateral prefrontal cortex, the RLPFC.

The RLPFC.

And the way researchers model this is

beautiful.

It mirrors the witness concept perfectly.

They talk about the object level versus the meta level.

OK, break that down for us.

Sure.

Imagine you’re solving a puzzle.

The thoughts about the puzzle itself, this piece fits here.

That’s the object level.

OK.

The part of your mind that notices, huh,

I’m feeling frustrated right now, that’s the meta level.

That’s the eagle watching the jaguar.

So the RLPFC is the hub that lets us pause and check in

on our own internal state.

It’s crucial.

It generates a little report on yourself.

It’s a system state that you can use.

You learn to see your thoughts as thoughts, not as absolute reality.

And without that perspective, it must be so much harder to heal.

Oh, absolutely.

Metacognitive problems are at the core of anxiety, of depression.

Without the eagle’s view, you’re just fused with every thought

and emotion that comes along.

But if you can develop that witness.

It’s incredibly protective, you realize.

I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts.

So bringing this all together, what does this four-part journey

tell us about?

Healing trauma or chronic stress?

It tells us the journey has to be sequential.

It’s hierarchical.

You have to start with safety, the South.

Always.

Only from a regulated body can you safely process trauma in the West.

And only after that can you create new meaning in the North.

And then finally, you can achieve that stable, integrated wisdom of the East.

This makes the logic of traditional ceremonies so clear.

It’s a profound neural scaffold.

It’s orchestrated to take you through the wheel.

So it starts with drumming and chanting.

To establish safety, the South.

Activating that ventral vagal state in the group.

And that provides the platform to do

the deeper emotional work of the West

and reframe narratives in the North.

You mentioned that this whole hierarchy

can reverse under stress.

It does.

It’s called dissolution.

When we get overwhelmed, we lose access

to the higher brain systems first.

So you lose the eagle’s perspective.

Then you lose cognitive control.

You get flooded with emotion.

And you spiral down into a defensive state in the South.

So the wheel teaches you to recognize that spiral

and go right back to the beginning.

Go back to the South.

Restore safety first before you try to do anything else.

It’s a roadmap for building resilience.

Leveraging neuroplasticity.

And we haven’t even really touched on co-regulation.

The idea that the practitioner’s calm state literally helps regulate

the client’s nervous system.

It’s all connected.

This has just been incredible.

The medicine wheel isn’t just a collection of myths.

Not at all.

It’s a precise,

empirical map of our neural architecture.

Yeah, the path to healing.

The integration is the medicine, uniting the head and heart,

science and spirit.

We literally can rewire ourselves.

Building the resilience of the serpent,

the courage of the jaguar.

The clarity of the hummingbird and the awareness of the eagle.

As we wrap up, let’s think about that traditional teaching

of becoming a hollow bone.

Empty of obstructions so wisdom can flow through.

Which neurologically means achieving

those four integrated states.

Yeah.

The South.

Being autonomically regulated.

The West.

Having your shadows integrated.

The North.

A mind that is clear and creative.

And the East.

An awareness that is spacious.

When all four are online, you become an instrument for healing.

For yourself and for everyone around you.

So maybe the question for you to take away is this.

Which of those four states is your natural gift?

And which one?

Which one is your growing edge right now?

That’s the question that starts your own journey around the wheel.