Developing agency
I commonly say to groups that my work is about empowering individuals to have more choice in how they react or behave in any given situation—in other words, to develop agency. When we have agency over our own behaviour, we have more control and agency over our lives. Self-agency supports us to make good decisions. And when I peel back the layers, I demonstrate to these groups that at the foundation of creating self-agency, is to develop a sense of biological safety in the body.
What does biological safety mean?
What does biological safety mean? Essentially it is about having a regulated nervous system that can adapt and take appropriate action. When we have agency we can mobilise when needed and we can rest when needed, as well as many in between combinations. We can explore, take risks, and act with confidence. In biological safety states we feel joy, passion, and compassion, and we can play, connect with others, be present and creative.
Our body is always trying to return to homeostasis and asking whether it needs to conserve energy or expend energy. This is our survival strategy at its most basic. Do I respond from a place of defence—fear or anger—or do I respond from a place of safety? Do I go towards something, someone or a situation, or withdraw.
A regulated nervous system allows us to feel clam, physically and emotionally secure, rather than hypervigilant or shut down. In biological safety there are no perceived imminent threats to our wellbeing, and we can interact with others making secure attachments and bonds.
When we are hypervigilant, we have limited choice
Having agency requires the ability to choose and act freely, and it is easy to see that this is only really possible in biological safety states. One of the reasons is that in safety states, our prefrontal cortex can more fully engage. This is the part of the brain responsible for decision-making, planning, and flexible thinking. When we are hypervigilant, we have limited choice in how to act, since we need to prepare to defend ourselves. When we need to defend ourselves against a perceived threat, the survival circuits of the brain, such as the amygdala and dorsal vagal complex, are activated.
Furthermore, safe environments support agency, which could be seen as collective biological safety. As a therapist and facilitator, I work to be the safest thing or person in the room to allow the others around me to orient to their own safety. It is a powerful and effective skill. In safe environments, people naturally experiment, explore and are able assert themselves, all core components of agency. Unsafe environments tend to make us retreat and play small.
Agency grows when we feel our internal compass is reliable
Agency grows when we feel our internal compass is reliable, we can trust ourselves. If our body feels unsafe, then we constantly scan for external threats, and in fact can imagine threats when they are not necessarily there. This is the territory of conspiracy theories, which tend not to take hold when we have self-agency and biological safety in a regulated nervous system. We can trust our own decisions in safety states.
Interestingly safety states can also support risk taking. When we have biological safety and agency, we can set boundaries, leave a bad situation, or speak up. We are more likely to question situations. We are more willing to step into uncertainty because our body trusts that we can handle it. We might view this as also having more resilience.
On the other hand, when safety is missing, perhaps through chronic stress or trauma, it can lead to chronic hypervigilance, continually scanning for danger, leading to collapse, helplessness and other shut down states such as dissociation, numbness, or passive compliance and appeasement. All of these reduce agency because the nervous system is stuck in survival mode. Here we do not want to take unnecessary risks, we play small, try to keep the status quo by perhaps following what others say or ask of us. We might even believe our actions or viewpoints don’t matter through a learned helplessness. We become unable to think for ourselves, relying on others to dictate what we should do. We have no agency of our own.
My therapeutic and coaching work is therefore aimed at supporting the nervous system’s biological safety states. Without a felt sense of safety, even the most empowered cognitive strategies such as goal setting or mind shifts become ineffective—because the body doesn’t feel safe enough to be in charge. Better strategies to develop agency include somatic practices such as somatic awareness, breathing and movement practices, therapeutic bodywork, and auditory practices, all of which affect change in the autonomic nervous system.
In conclusion, when the body feels safe it has agency to act, think, and behave in ways that are most authentic to each of us. We are free to be ourselves.
First published in Northern Ireland Chamber magazine Ambition