The Hare and the Tortoise

Most of us grew up hearing the story of th Hare and the Tortoise as a moral lesson. Slow and steady wins the race. The hare was careless. The tortoise was disciplined. Hard work beats natural talent, and so on.

spend any time in relationships or in a therapist’s chair and a different story starts to emerge. The hare and the tortoise are not personality types. They are nervous system states and the race they are running is not against each other. It is inside each of us.

Deb Dana and the idea of a home state

Polyvagal theory, developed by Stephen Porges and brought into clinical therapy practice by therapist Deb Dana, maps the autonomic nervous system across three broad states.

Firstly (or actually it came in last historically!) ventral vagal state one of connection, safety, and regulated engagement. (Think ears facial muscles brain stem and into heart and lungs - one branch of the parasympathetic nerve)

Then the sympathetic state mobilised, activated, wired for action and urgency. This nerve runs along the spinal column. Fabulous for running away and /or fighting sabre toothed tigers back in the day!

At the base is the dorsal vagal state, the oldest branch, associated with stillness, withdrawal, and shutdown. Let’s stay in the cave and play dead when the tiger comes ..

Deb Dana introduces the idea that each of us has a kind of habitual place in the nervous system ie a state we return to most naturally and also under pressure, a familiar neighbourhood we know how to navigate even when it no longer serves us. She calls it a “home from home.” Not where we want to be. But where we land.

For some of us, that home is sympathetic. Mine is! the body that says move, fix, manage, hurry. The person already at the door, keys in hand, chest buzzing, running a countdown nobody else can hear. This is the hare.

For others, that home is dorsal vagal: the body that steadies itself by slowing down, conserving energy, going quiet. One of my sons hangs out here. Not laziness. Not indifference. A nervous system doing what it was designed to do under pressure. This is the tortoise.

Neither is a character flaw. Both are adaptations. Both once served a purpose. The trick is not to get stuck there but move flexibly between and enjoy each state (rest issooo important for me! I also love swimming and walking and dancing when my knees allow .. ) coming up to ventral vagal (in IFS we’d equate this to Self and in RLT the wise adult)

the Dance between

What happens when these two people try to leave the house at the same time? Or co-facilitate a workshop? Or navigate a family event together?

The hare’s urgency lands on the tortoise’s nervous system as pressure. under pressure, the dorsal system does what it is wired to do it slows further, conserves more, becomes harder to reach.

The tortoise’s stillness lands on the hare’s nervous system as a signal of threat like of being unmet, of things falling apart so under that threat, the sympathetic system does what it is wired to do… it accelerates, pushes harder, escalates.

The more one rushes, the more the other slows. The more the other slows, the more the first one rushes. Round it goes.

no coregulation or safety the systems are under threat

This is the loop. It’s like a nervous system duet, each person’s state pulling the other further from regulation, unintentionally both of them trying to feel safe

Adding in IFS

Internal Family Sytems offers another lens on the same dynamic. IFS understands the psyche as made up of parts each carrying its own feelings, beliefs, and protective strategies. Many of these parts developed early, in response to experiences where certain ways of being kept us safe or helped us manage what felt unmanageable.

In IFS language, both the hare and the tortoise can be seen also as protectors. The urgent, mobilising part that pushes and paces and chases is a part doing its best to prevent what it fears. Chckninside you? Maybe chaos, failure, being left to carry everything alone? The slower, withdrawn part that shuts down and seals off is not intentionally being difficult perhaps but apart doing its best to prevent maybe overwhelm, intrusion, or a loss of ground.

Neither part is wrong. Both are trying to help. The difficulty is that, in relationship, they tend to activate each other and without awareness, the loop runs on automatically and indefinitely.. my parents marriage was this for example

A note on neurodiversity

It is worth naming that for some people, nervous system wiring is not only shaped by early attachment or relational history. It is also neurological. My own AuDHD brain has a natural pull toward the sympathetic end ie fast-processing, quickly activated, already several steps ahead and oh so intense

My son, who is also AuDHD, often moves in the opposite direction under pressure, so he goes toward stillness, toward shutdown, toward the tortoise end of things. We are, genuinely, each other’s hare and tortoise at times. Understanding that has changed something in how we both hold the friction between us. It is not wilful. It is not personal but wiring

For neurodifferent couples and families especially, this framing can hopefully offer real relief. The person who appears unbothered may be in dorsal shutdown . The person who appears controlling may be in sympathetic activation. What looks like a power struggle is often two people attempting to regulate, in completely opposite directions, at exactly the same time.

Invitation

Naming the loop is the beginning. Not in the heat of it .. that rarely lands cleanly but in the quieter moments afterward, when both nervous systems have had a chance to settle.

“I go fast when I’m scared. You go slow when you’re overwhelmed. We are both trying to feel okay. How does that land with you?”

From an IFS perspective, this is noticing and being Self-led - meeting our own parts and each other’s with curiosity rather than judgment, recognising the protective intent underneath the behaviour that drives us apart.

From a polyvagal perspective, it is co-regulation as two nervous systems, once locked in opposition, gradually learning to resource each other rather than dysregulate each other.

Neither happens overnight. It takes ages to learn to play guitar for example .. awareness is where it starts. 

Im wondering if this resonates … whether you recognise yourself as the hare, the tortoise, or someone who moves between both depending on the moment

Reading

Dana, D. (2018). The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.

Dana, D. (2020). Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection: 50 Client-Centered Practices. W. W. Norton & Company.

Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.

Schwartz, R. C., & Sweezy, M. (2020). Internal Family Systems Therapy (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.

Real, T. (2022). Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship. Rodale Books.