Natureza Gabriel Kram - "Reconciling Polyvagal Theory"
Oct 26, 2026 · 1 hr 44 min · 11 segments
Natureza Gabriel Kram, founder of Hearth Science and author of…
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Oct 26, 2026 · 1 hr 44 min · 11 segments
Natureza Gabriel Kram, founder of Hearth Science and author of…
What did you think of that, y'all? Certainly a lot for us to consider in there, wouldn't you say? I'm sure for all of my anatomy geek friends, there was a lot of cool stuff in there.
He almost lost me at a couple points because, you know, I'm not like a full-on anatomy guy by nature.
But even just the way that he was talking about the layers of the autonomic system and the kind of subtleties of things that happen in our systems just as like our body functioning and then us being able to pay attention to those things or affect that in some way.
But in terms of the whole polyvagal theory and understanding like the history of that and what it is saying and what it isn't saying, I found that very interesting.
I always come back to the same thing when we talk about scientific lenses for yoga or like human experience, right? Because like I was talking about with Gabriel, there's all these things that yoga teachers just observe to be true.
It's observably true that an embodied sense of safety is fundamental to a healing process.
Many of us have experienced that ourselves and then worked to understand how to facilitate an experience of embodied safety to people.
So if polyvagal theory is the way that that gets put out into our consciousness or whatever, into medicine even, then absolutely, I think that's a valuable thing.
But the difference is when we use the scientific lens or we're using vagal tone or heart rate variability to measure the biological functions in our body, Sometimes when I hear people talk about these things, when we're learning about anatomy as a way to bring us into the experience of embodied safety, then I think it's a valuable thing.
That's why people want to teach about polyvagal theory and the nervous system in yoga classes because they want to have lots of different ways of getting people into that experience.
However, I've also seen it that Teaching people about their anatomy or like right brain learning about anatomy as opposed to like experiential anatomy like we were talking about last week.
But a lot of times teaching people about their anatomy and saying you've got, you know, your parasympathetic and your sympathetic nervous system like I was talking about with Gabriel, like oversimplifying these things.
It makes it seem like, oh, I don't know what they're talking about, so I guess I can't do it or whatever.
And a lot of this is very intuitive and natural and trying to explain it away through words.
However, if we're like inquiring into our anatomy in a way that's with awe and wonder and bringing us into our experience, then I think it's very valuable.
What did you think of that, y'all? Certainly a lot for us to consider in there, wouldn't you say? I'm sure for all of my anatomy geek friends, there was a lot of cool stuff in there.
He almost lost me at a couple points because, you know, I'm not like a full-on anatomy guy by nature.
But even just the way that he was talking about the layers of the autonomic system and the kind of subtleties of things that happen in our systems just as like our body functioning and then us being able to pay attention to those things or affect that in some way.
But in terms of the whole polyvagal theory and understanding like the history of that and what it is saying and what it isn't saying, I found that very interesting.
I always come back to the same thing when we talk about scientific lenses for yoga or like human experience, right? Because like I was talking about with Gabriel, there's all these things that yoga teachers just observe to be true.
It's observably true that an embodied sense of safety is fundamental to a healing process.
Many of us have experienced that ourselves and then worked to understand how to facilitate an experience of embodied safety to people.
So if polyvagal theory is the way that that gets put out into our consciousness or whatever, into medicine even, then absolutely, I think that's a valuable thing.
But the difference is when we use the scientific lens or we're using vagal tone or heart rate variability to measure the biological functions in our body, Sometimes when I hear people talk about these things, when we're learning about anatomy as a way to bring us into the experience of embodied safety, then I think it's a valuable thing.
That's why people want to teach about polyvagal theory and the nervous system in yoga classes because they want to have lots of different ways of getting people into that experience.
However, I've also seen it that Teaching people about their anatomy or like right brain learning about anatomy as opposed to like experiential anatomy like we were talking about last week.
But a lot of times teaching people about their anatomy and saying you've got, you know, your parasympathetic and your sympathetic nervous system like I was talking about with Gabriel, like oversimplifying these things.
It makes it seem like, oh, I don't know what they're talking about, so I guess I can't do it or whatever.
And a lot of this is very intuitive and natural and trying to explain it away through words.
However, if we're like inquiring into our anatomy in a way that's with awe and wonder and bringing us into our experience, then I think it's very valuable.
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