the Power of Singing

September 2025 Edition

The voice opens and closes in accordance with our body’s automated survival responses.

Greetings lovers of community singing! 🎶  

For the first week of September, I am eagerly on my way to Omega Institute with my sister in song, Lauren, to bask in 5 days of community singing at Songfest. I am so thrilled and privileged to be able to attend and learn from Maggie Wheeler, Arnaé Batson, Melanie DeMore, Alexandra “ahlay” Blakely, Aimée Ringle, Meredith Scott Lynn, Anilee List, and Moreau Halliburton. The vowel sound of my anticipatory joy is: Eeeeeeee! 

Something I love about community singing is BELONGING is one of the foundational values of the movement.

I'm going to nerd out this month and explore belonging through the science of safety, a topic I ponder often and track closely as both a student and practitioner. So put on your science caps for a really brief overview of polyvagal theory applied to group singing (or just scroll down for upcoming events)!

🎶 Poly What? Polyvagal Theory!

Polyvagal theory rests on three key principles: co-regulation, neuroception, and hierarchy. Our nervous system is always scanning for the whispers of safety or the stirrings of threat. Our body’s built-in surveillance system, called neuroception, is continuously evaluating subtle shifts in tone of voice, facial expression, posture, and movement—well before the mind creates the story of perception.  

Neuroception sends signals via the vagus nerve to the brain, activating pathways that promote social engagement—regulating heart rate and breathing accompanied by friendly facial, vocal and postural expressions. When threat is detected, defensive and protective strategies are activated, including all the f words you're probably familiar with: fight, flight, fawn or freeze. 

Co-regulation is any reciprocal, mutually beneficial exchange that supports social engagement. In the context of group singing, we neuroceptively scan for these co-regulatory cues that reassure us: you are welcome here, you and your voice belong here. These cues are exchanged in microseconds—a welcoming hug, a soft glance, a nod of encouragement, smiling eyes from across the circle, bodies mirroring each other through swaying in sync to the rhythm, a harmony offered like an open hand.  

The polyvagal hierarchy explains how our nervous system organizes its responses to safety and threat in a predictable developmental order. This hierarchy shapes our perception—turning the neuroception of safety vs threat into a narrative or story. The state determines the story.  Let’s explore how the story might shift in the context of group singing, depending on the state we’re in.Your head, face and upper chest are regulated by the ventral portion of the vagus nerve. When we perceive safety, social engagement is the ventral vagal state where we hang out - at home in ourselves and with each other, basking in belonging, ready for playtime!

In group singing, ventral vagal is the sweet spot where heart and sound resonance just feels so good! We risk expressing ourselves more freely in this state—our voices soar, we sway together to the rhythm, and can risk improvising a harmony, or stepping forward to solo over the melody. We may notice fear, but it's eclipsed by our courage and excitement to meet it. Mistakes—forgetting lyrics, being off pitch or out of rhythm—are an expected part of being on the playground. We might giggle, catch up and move on, undeterred. The story in this state is: "i/we can" and "singing together feels <all the good feels>"!

Yet even a small cue of threat can tip us into sympathetic activation—the revved-up state of fight-flight-fawn. Sometimes we can perceive what the signal of threat is, and sometimes we can't. Either way, we might feel the blush of embarrassment rising, the breath quickening, the throat tightening. We may notice frustration mounting or an urge to step out of the circle. Self-criticism or perfectionism may creep in, and the story shifts to separation: “i can’t” or “i suck”  or "i don't belong here".

If the cues of threat become overwhelming, we may descend further down the polyvagal ladder into dorsal vagal shutdown. The dorsal portion of the vagus nerve activates a state of freeze. In group singing, this is when our confidence collapses, our breath is held, our throat closes, and our body folds in protecting us from the hot flush of shame and intense fear. Our voice may constrict to a whisper or go silent as our nervous system pulls us into protective retreat. Looking up and out at the group for cues of safety can feel way too scary to risk in this state. The story shifts to a more immobilizing sense of separation: "it's / i'm / you're / we're not safe to sing here".

In every song circle and vocal improv jam, this is our practice: greeting and disarming our survival strategies, together—those loyal guardians who so often stand between our intentions to show up on the playground and our full expression of play. Each of these states comes and goes and we can learn to befriend and welcome them, embracing moments when our voices soar, falter, and retreat in silence. By gently noticing the state we're in—connected, protected or withdrawn—the invitation is to hold ourselves and each other with kindness and friendliness, dismantling perfectionism and the many other ism's that separate us from joining our voices in one song.

That's it - my very brief overview.

A synopsis: in group singing, if we prioritize sending and receiving co-regulatory cues of safety and connection, we are much more likely to be socially engaged, returning over and over again, to an open, trusting heart where singing is a continual practice of remembering we belong to ourselves, to one another, and to Source. Let's sing!

Upcoming Offerings

I’m honored to co-create spaces where we can meet these edges together—and gently, bravely, open our voices to express <all the things>, both spoken and sung.

On my page, Let's Sing Together, you’ll find opportunities to gather in song, and through subscribing to my monthly newsletter, resources to inspire your singing journey.

I am so grateful for being part of this vibrant, ever-evolving web of group singing in so many dynamic forms, with each of you!

With love and in song,

Tatianah Thunberg, LMSW

www.spiritmoves.us/sing-together