Deb Dana
Clinician
28
MENTIONS
25
EPISODES
23
PODCASTS
Search complete. 28 mentions across 25 episodes found for "Deb Dana".
Nov 9, 2026
Cindy PayneHOST
Some of us get anxious about the moments that things start to feel good.
Cindy PayneHOST
Deb Dana, who writes about polyvagal theory, talks about glimmers.
Cindy PayneHOST
And I've talked about this before.
Cindy PayneHOST
These are those tiny moments of safety and connection, like warm sun on your face or a song that you just love.
Rosie SteerGUEST
One of the things that brought me back to myself through that long, dark, deep winter was searching for glimmers.
Rosie SteerGUEST
So working with my NHS therapist, she introduced me to this term by Deb Dana, which is about these micro moments of joy, very, very small joys that we can note and notice and can help us feel grounded and safe and secure and therefore help our nervous systems.
Rosie SteerGUEST
And so it was even slower seasons.
Rosie SteerGUEST
It was even smaller.
Wai JiaHOST
What is one everyday practice you would like to impart to our listeners today, Alyssa? I had Dr.
Wai JiaHOST
Deb Dana talk about visualizing a ventral space, a beautiful space in our minds.
Wai JiaHOST
Is there another practice? And you mentioned deep breathing a couple of times or any other somatic practice you would like to leave with our listeners?
Alyssa DiLeoGUEST
My personal favorite also is visualizing.
Justin SunseriHOST
But how can you change what you're rejecting? Third, co-regulation, if it's available to you.
Justin SunseriHOST
Deb Dana has a great image for this, which she gave to me in an interview that I did with her years and years ago.
Deb DanaSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
So anchoring in ventral then allows me to go sit with my client in dorsal and simply be there.
Deb DanaSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
I don't need to do anything.
Cindy PayneHOST
I am now like a dog parent and, you know, not with the absence of my boys.
Cindy PayneHOST
And Deb Dana, who writes about the nervous system, talks about these as glimmers, these small moments of safety and connection that help us feel okay.
Cindy PayneHOST
So just like there's been a lot of focus on triggers, noticing glimmers is a habit that you can begin to practice daily.
Cindy PayneHOST
And connection also means noticing who drains you.
speaker_2GUEST
If you can't do the whole two or three years of it, like the entire training, I would really recommend doing at least the first year of it because you would just get the first three modules, which would give you a good basis and a lot of this information.
speaker_2GUEST
And then you mentioned Deb Dana.
speaker_2GUEST
I have not read her whole book, but some people have mentioned that's helpful.
speaker_2GUEST
And then I really like Kathy Kane's book, Nurturing Resilience.
Laura CipulloHOST
Right.
Laura CipulloHOST
Get in our bodies and figure out how do you keep dipping, dipping in like that Deb Dana, you know, dip down into ventral vagal.
Laura CipulloHOST
Right.
Laura CipulloHOST
So like.
Afshan TaflerHOST
Every day, pat yourself on the back for what you did do, even if it didn't change your child.
Afshan TaflerHOST
and allow yourself to feel the glimmer in it, okay? This is helping our brain come out of this chronic negativity bias we get stuck in, okay? So glimmers is Deb Dana, who teaches polyvagal theory and therapy.
Afshan TaflerHOST
It's her word for the small moments of ease, safety, or connection that are the opposite of triggers, okay? Little moments of safety and little moments of feeling like you're enough.
Afshan TaflerHOST
So when my son was barely eating some days, I'd say to myself on the nights that he would eat more, oh, he ate two small meals today.
Amy SmithGUEST
Yeah.
Amy SmithGUEST
And again, it's not about, and I, like Deb Dana talks about, refraining our nervous system.
Amy SmithGUEST
And I really, I love that language
Katie KurtzHOST
because
Dominique HannahHOST
And one of those is polyvagal theory.
Dominique HannahHOST
I think we'll, I've talked about Deb Dana.
Dominique HannahHOST
Before she's, you know, amazing resource, just written a book called Anchored, which goes through polyvagal theory, which is very much about understanding the way that the sympathetic and parasympathetic, which are the autonomic nervous system, how they work.
Dominique HannahHOST
And what you'll hear people talk about in that area is the idea of bottom up or top down.
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