Teri McGovern-Nintzel

The Synergy of Empathy Circles and Vagal Toning 
Speaker: Teri McGovern-Nintzel   (15 min)

Overview

Terry McGovern-Nintzel, a practitioner of the yoga of sound, discussed the synergy of empathy circles and vagal toning, emphasizing their benefits according to polyvagal theory. She explained how empathy circles foster social engagement by providing cues of safety, while vagal toning practices like poetry, sounds, and touch enhance this engagement. Terry led a practice involving facial toning, sensory awareness, and vocal exercises to activate the social engagement nervous system, aiming to deepen attunement and connection within the empathy circle. Participants shared positive experiences, highlighting the integration and embodiment of nervous system care through these practices.

Action Items

• [ ] Collect participants’ chat responses about their experience with the integration embodiment practice and share them with Terry for her review.

Outline

Introduction to Terry McGovern-Nintzel

• Speaker 1 introduces Terry as a vagal toning and empathy circle facilitator, writer, poet, and intuitive composer.

• Terry is expected to discuss the synergy of empathy circles and vagal toning.

• Terry expresses excitement about the topic and mentions her background in the yoga of sound.

• Terry plans to share a polyvagal perspective and offer a practice for attendees to experience.

Overview of Polyvagal Theory

• Terry explains that vagal toning is a nervous system care practice informed by polyvagal theory.

• The theory suggests that our nervous systems respond to cues of safety and threat, influencing our state.

• Terry describes the three branches of the nervous system: ventral vagal (social engagement), sympathetic (fight or flight), and dorsal vagal (freeze response).

• She emphasizes that our nervous systems shape each other's experiences through cues of safety and threat.

Empathy Circles and Vagal Toning

• Terry discusses how empathy circles provide cues of safety, such as attuned listening, authentic speaking, and warm vocal tones.

• These cues activate the social engagement nervous system, softening defensive responses and enhancing connection.

• Terry highlights the importance of vagal toning practices like poetry, sounds, breath, movement, touch, and sensory awareness.

• She prefers to start empathy circles with a facial toning practice to soften defensive responses and enhance attunement.

Practical Application of Polyvagal Theory

• Terry explains that vagal pathway information flows 80% body to brain and 20% brain to body.

• She suggests that vagal toning before empathy circles can deepen connection to self and others.

• Terry offers to guide attendees through a practice to experience the benefits of vagal toning.

• She encourages participants to choose their own practices if they prefer.

Guided Practice: Poem and Havening

• Terry begins with a poem by Rumi, encouraging participants to notice their state of being.

• She introduces a havening practice, guiding participants to offer gentle soothing touch to their social engagement system.

• Terry suggests starting with the bridge of the nose and moving to other areas like cheeks, arms, legs, and eyes.

• She emphasizes the importance of choice and agency in the practice.

Facial Toning and Sensory Awareness

• Terry guides participants through facial toning, focusing on the jaw, face, and scalp.

• She explains the significance of acupressure points and their impact on the nervous system.

• Participants are encouraged to follow their sensations and receive touch messages from their own face.

• Terry offers specific points for sensory awareness and facial receptivity, guiding participants through movements and sounds.

Integration and Conclusion

• Terry encourages participants to notice shifts in their state, such as subtle perspective shifts or feelings of ease.

• She guides a practice involving the temporalis muscle, jaw movement, and sounds to release tension.

• Participants are encouraged to hum and vibrate sounds to enhance the practice.

• Terry concludes the practice, inviting participants to notice their face, heart, breath, and prepare to transition back to the empathy circle.

Transcript

Speaker 1  0:00  

Terry is a vagel toning and empathy circle facilitator, writer, poet, and intuitive composer who creates spaces that support connection, resilience and embodied presence. And today, Terry is going to talk on the synergy of empathy circles and bagel toning. Get it? More science, I'm in.

Speaker 2  0:24  

All right. Good morning, everyone. Yes, I'm Terry McGovern, and I'm.. I consider myself a practitioner of the yoga of sound and empathy circles is a big part of that. So, for my time, I'm going to share a brief polyvagal perspective on why I like to bring empathy circles and vagal toning together as a practice, and then I'll offer us a practice if people would like to experience that, so let me just get my slide up, I Alright, so vagal toning is a nervous system care practice. It's informed by polyvagal theory, and this is a theory that basically suggests that our nervous systems are always responding to cues of safety and threat internally in our environment, and these responses influence our state. So, we're going to have a different perception, emotions, different behavior, depending on which pathway in our nervous system is lighting up, and I chose this slide, so you can see there's these three, these three branches. The green one is our ventral vagal, that's our social engagement nervous system. You can see it goes from the heart to the face, this the void, the vocal area, and the ear, and so that's that part of our nervous system, autonomic nervous system. 

And then there's a sympathetic branch that's that yellow branch down the spine, and then the dorsal vagal, and that's the red pathway that goes in the face as well, also down to the heart and all the organs, and so I'm not going to talk like a ton about all this, but just to emphasize, we have a social engagement nervous system, and another thing I love about polyvagal theory is that it suggests that our nervous systems are always shaping each other's experience because we inherently respond to cues of safety and threat, so in an empathy circle our nervous systems detect a lot of cues of safety, attuned listening, authentic speaking, curious and non-judgmental expressions, predictable boundaries, warm vocal tones, and as we receive all these cues and layers throughout the circle process, our social engagement nervous system becomes more active, and then defensive responses tend to soften, and this can be experienced in our body as like deep connection, you know, a sense of warmth, ease, hope, vitality, oneness, all of that becomes more available.

 So, just like we can intentionally offer each other cues of safety and empathy circles, we can also support our social engagement nervous system through vagal toning practices like poetry, sounds that we might make, breath, movement, touch, sensory awareness, and so I really like to begin empathy circles with facial toning practice, because then I feel like I'm getting that benefit of, you know, softening defensive responses and making my social engagement system more available, and this often will support for me a deeper experience of attunement and warmth in the circle, so another thing is information in our vagal pathway flows 80% body to brain and 20% brain to body, so it makes sense to me that some people might really notice that vagal toning prior to the empathy circle helps them deepen connection to self and others. All right, so since repeated practice can strengthen our social engagement system, I want to offer an opportunity to experience this together. 

So the rest of my time will be a practice, and I'm going to share a poem and just guide us through some practices that support communication between our body and brain, and just release areas of the jaw, face, and scalp that can often tighten with stress to open up that social engagement pathway, so we can maybe have more of an impact through it in our empathy circle. Okay, so I just invite you to take a comfortable seat or stand or lay down or get wherever you feel like you are most happy and easeful, and just as I want to share, for anything that I offer, it's optional. A big part of any practice, I think, is choice, that's what establishes that agency, so if something isn't landing. For you, or you just want to do your own practice that you already have in love, that's totally welcome and encouraged by me. And I'll begin with this poem by Rumi. Let the beauty we love be what we do today, like every other day we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the debt, the store, the door to the study, and begin reading.

Speaker 2  5:30  

Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. There are 1000 ways to kneel and kiss the earth. Let the beauty we love be what we do. Let the beauty we love be what we do. Let the beauty we love be what we do. Let the beauty we love be what we do. I'll just leave a few moments for that to wash over you, and you might like to notice state feeling of your face, the pace of your breath, body sensation, thoughts swirling and and then if you'd like to come into this next practice with me, a little bit of havening practice, you might just take your fingers and begin to interact with your social engagement system by offering it this gentle soothing touch and letting go of ideas of like achievement, there's not something to fix or perfect, but simply welcoming yourself as you are with everything that you're carrying and attuning to yourself, offering this touch at a place, in a play, in a pace, a depth that appeals to your own senses, so maybe bringing this to the bridge of your nose, out across your cheeks, you could also do arms, legs, feet, mm Letting it feel good, perhaps shoulders down to elbows, like you would pet a cat, just one direction, and then if you'd like to bring this into this upper circuit of your vagus nerve, the eyes, just maybe beginning by greeting your eyes, you might want them open or closed.

 If they're open, you could choose to gaze upon something that brings you a sense of warmth or an experience of beauty, or if they're closed, just letting them rest. Perhaps this is a moment to offer them gratitude for all that they are fielding for you, and maybe just gentle, moving, soothing touches, perhaps coming underneath on top of the ridge of the cheek, and just softening in towards your eyes with your fingers, maybe giving light circles over the temples, and as you do this, perhaps really sensing and feeling underneath your fingertips, through the tissues of your skin, perhaps to the muscles around your eyes. What are you noticing in terms of sensation and letting your movements be connected into that, so that you're following what sensations feel good, perhaps bringing your fingertips to the inner edges of your eyebrows and offering circles here in traditional Chinese medicine.

 This is a an acupressure point where nervous system interaction becomes more available, and it's considered a point to brighten the eyes to restore energy. So, noticing how this feels for you, any sighs or sounds that come available are welcome, and if you'd like to move on, perhaps. To this other part of your face, maybe just bringing your fingertips sliding down from the ridge of the nose, and offering this point sensory awareness, facial awareness, facial receptivity, I think you can call it to your cheeks, so this is about sensing and feeling and awakening the empathy system of your face, where you may feel emotion, or where you may express emotion, or express receptivity, so offering yourself receptivity in these moments, sensing and feeling beneath your fingers, and not trying to fix or force or change anything, just receiving through touch the message of your own face, perhaps smoothing fingers all along the cheekbone out towards the jaw, and maybe some circles over the TMJ here, and maybe some, just some raking down through that masseter muscle at the back of the jaw, circles over the angle of the jaw, if you like that, maybe some sounds coming out there, and you can offer yourself this next point if you want to.

 This is a releasing grief point, so maybe letting go of anything accumulated that feels heavy, or just a small part of it, if it's really, if it's large, that could be very relatable. So this one is just the size of the the nostrils, and then fingers underneath the cheekbone, and I really love to get the whole side of my finger up under the cheekbone there, but you can experiment what feels good to you. You might like to hold a point.

Speaker 2  12:02  

You might like to gently make contact, and then release sensing and feeling what's there for you, and then maybe just smoothing underneath the cheekbone all the way back, kind of using the bone and your fingers there to feel through those tissues, coming back to the area below the jaw joint, maybe some more circles there, just holding points and and then I'll just offer a moment to pause, perhaps, and sense and feel your face, your heart, your breath, you might notice some shifts, subtle or not so subtle, in your state, maybe a perspective shift, or just feeling easier to be present, I if you'd like to do this next one with me, I'll guide us to just take our fingers, and you might want to kind of wiggle them around, and you know, maybe spread some out, get them ready for some action, and if you want to do this, you can take your fingers and come into the area right above your cheekbone. I just lost my microphone. I'm going to switch microphones.

Speaker 1  13:54  

You're still coming in clear.

Speaker 2  13:56  

Oh no, I didn't. Okay, we're fine. Right above your cheekbone, and then just rake your fingers through your temporalis muscle here, and as you do this, you might like to open and close your jaw, and just notice what's here for you, there could be tension or areas of soreness, so as you break your fingers up through the temporalis, you might find that you, you get into that layer of tissue under the skin, and you're just able to anchor it up, and then you can open your jaw and stretch that out, you might like to go through it with a little more movement and and just noticing what feels good for you as you do this. Maybe you want to bring in a sound. Oh, letting that sound feel like it comes from your heart to your voice, face, ears, and it's. A sound that that that brings you pleasure, not about sounding good, but just liking the vibration of the sound in your own body, perhaps sending to the sound to an area of tension, maybe allowing a sigh,

Speaker 3  15:39  

the vocal slide, Kenneth, going up,

Speaker 2  15:55  

maybe a little bit more all around your whole scalp, kind of loosening up that thinking cap, letting the energy flow throughout the system, maybe a little head hold, placing a hand on your nape of your neck, a hand on your forehead, and perhaps offering yourself a light through your hands, color, maybe more sound, you might want to bring in a humming, like a, and just fill the vibrations in your head, mm. You might experiment with where you place your tongue as you do this. If you want to switch hands, that can be helpful, letting your lips lightly touch with your hum, and at the end let your tongue gently, lightly float up to the roof of your mouth and feel the vibrations move through your head, maybe up to the top, you're Receiving this input, adjusting and recalibrating, so that the cues you're offering yourself feel yummy for you, feel like warmth, like ease, and then maybe, if you'd like to go to the next, taking your fingers to your ears, and you can hold your tragus here, it's that little flap of skin that, if you touched it, it would close your eardrum, just maybe holding there,

Speaker 4  18:02  

I

Speaker 2  18:03  

Maybe give it a little squeeze, perhaps some circles in the concha, the basin of the ear, and then last practice, maybe just a little bit of head circles, like you're going to draw a circle on the ceiling one way and then the other, and one last moment to notice maybe just a little bit of shoulders up, back, and down. One last moment to notice face. You might notice temperature, warmth, body sensations, breathe. Hmm, maybe just a moment to get ready to get a transition back to the empathy circle. I thank you for your practice. Thank you for practicing with me, and look forward to continuing our practice together. Whoa,

Speaker 4  19:18  

let's take a little extra breath to just come back together. That was impactful. Thank you, Terry. Wow, I love that we had integration embodiment practices at the top of each of these hours. What a great way to allow our nervous system to take this in and and be with it. I would love to hear people's experience in the chat, so we can share that with Terry, and she can take a look at that. I know I had, I had to turn my, my. Microphone down, because I was yawning and humming, and whole breakthroughs, that was for me fabulous. I would love to hear what y'all.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai