Play Zone Pro: A Polyvagal-Informed Certificate for Wellness & Performance Coaches Our next cohort starts live Zoom sessions on April 4, 2023 and continues for 8 weeks with Zoom sessions every other Tuesday from 2:30-4 pm ET. You may enroll in this course at any time, begin learning right away, progress at your own pace, and then jump into the next series of LIVE TRAINING SESSIONS in April 2023. Overview Polyvagal Theory describes the science of how our autonomic nervous system continually scans the internal, external and relational environments for risk and safety, and adaptively shifts physiological state (i.e. neural regulation of visceral organs, bodily systems, heart rate, breathing, etc.) depending on whether the current conditions are subconsciously evaluated as safe, dangerous or overwhelming (i.e. life-threatening). These reflexive bodily reactions (i.e. changes in heart rate, breathing, tone of voice, facial expressions, etc.) impact every aspect of our health, wellness and performance, as well as influence how we interact with others and experience the world. More than our subjective experience, when we feel safe, our body is in a physiological state supporting health, growth and restoration (i.e. homeostasis). Whereas, when we feel unsafe, our body is interrupting homeostasis and either expending resources to attack, defend or escape, or conserving what’s left and shutting things down in a last ditch effort to survive. These are adaptive survival responses triggered autonomically that follow a predictable pattern paralleling evolution in reverse versus being consciously planned, thinking-brain decisions. It is only when we feel safe in our body that we are optimizing our metabolic resources, internal bodily systems, and our patterns of responses, behaviors, and how we relate to others, in ways that promote our health, resilience and overall quality of life. Therefore, as a Polyvagal-informed Coach we have three fundamental goals that we hold for ourselves and for our clients: • Meet the body where it is. We recognize whether we feel safe or unsafe, and respect that our bodily feelings have an underlying neurophysiology regulated by our autonomic nervous system. • Help the body to find, feel and absorb what’s safe to the body. In addition to threat, we have the capacity to detect cues of safety in the surrounding environment, within our own body, and through our interactions with others. We help ourselves to get better at seeing, hearing and feeling the features available to us that soothe, calm and reassure our body that we’re ok. • Build strategies, inner resources, habits, daily practices and relationships that promote feelings of safety and connection in the body. We intentionally cultivate these spaces, places, actions and interactions that match our body’s biological needs for safety to counteract the competitive, evaluative, dynamically changing and uncertain climates of today. At the heart of Polyvagal-informed Coaching, metaphorically and neurophysiologically, is how we relate with our clients. The secret to our evolutionary success as social mammals resides in our face-heart connection, the neuroanatomical link between the vagal regulation of our heart and the neural regulation of the muscles in our face and head that enables communication, cooperation and sociality to function as a neural modulator (i.e. cranial nerves 5,7,9,10 & 11). We exchange clues about our physiological state, whether friend or foe, through our facial expressions, prosody of our voice, how we breathe, the sounds we hear, and our body language (i.e. postures, movements, gestures, etc.). This understanding of our heart-face connection, meeting the body where it is, and our shared biological journey to feel safe, become the foundation for how we show up, what we do, and why we do it. Through self awareness, self care and compassion we become authentic, accessible and reliably present. This is the pathway to health, wellness and performance for ourselves and our clients. This is the essence of becoming a Polyvagal-informed Coach and optimizing our human experience. Whether you are a Health or Life Coach, Sports Coach, Wellness Practitioner, Fitness Trainer, Executive Coach, Physical Therapist, Performing Artist, Yoga or Pilates Instructor - anyone leading others to better health, performance and wellbeing - through this Polyvagal-Informed Certificate Course, you will: • Develop a deep understanding of PVT that you can apply directly to your work, how you show up, what you do, and how you are received so that you can optimize the growth and development of those you are working with. • Construct a comprehensive framework grounded in PVT that will support and organize all of the other tools and strategies you implement in your work. • Cultivate resources, tools, practices and strategies aligned directly with your unique discipline that you can employ on-demand for yourself and those you are leading. • Become part of an integrated community of other coaches, leaders, wellness practitioners, performers and enthusiasts who are Polyvagal-aligned and continue to evolve, share ideas and collaborate on your professional journey. • Gain wisdom, experience and an embodied understanding so that you can feel confident in applying Polyvagal Theory and the methodology of The Play Zone in all aspects of your work. • Learn how to regain control of your physiology to optimize your wellness, performance, longevity, adaptability and improve the quality of your relationships in every role that you play. • Build daily habits, lifestyle practices, inner resources and relationships that help you become an effective co-regulator. • Join our interactive app of polyvagal-informed coaches and health practitioners to continue sharing resources and expanding your learning, practices and applications. “The Play Zone is a truly remarkable and game changing course. Not only does Michael distill and teach the complexities and nuances of PVT in a readily understandable fashion, he also applies the concepts in a novel domain. His application of the theory in the realm of human performance is a groundbreaking paradigm that sets the foundation for all of us to perform our best in any and all domains of life.” -Darin Davidson, MD, Orthopedic Surgeon Certificate from Polyvagal Institute: Polyvagal-Informed Certificate for Wellness & Performance Coaches CEs: 18 (see below) Students will have access to the course for 180 days from the date of purchase.