A · Connection
Contact feels safe enough
Tone, context, and the other person's perspective remain available. A mismatch can be discussed without immediately threatening the relationship.
TEG-Blue · The Emotional Gradient Blueprint
The Nervous System Gradient
TEG-Blue is a visual map of how nervous-system state can shape emotion, perception, relationship, action, and repair.
The Nervous System Gradient brings established research together to show how these patterns may shift across safety, threat, control, shutdown, regulation, and repair.
It makes linked changes visible: what the body prepares for, what draws attention, what feels possible, how another person is perceived, and whether repair can begin. It is a map for studying patterns, not a diagnosis or a claim of certainty about motive.
XSafe & at rest
ASafe with others
A↔BIs it still safe?
BThreat
CPersistent threat
DLife threat
ZCapacity exceeded
Gradient Map
Move through the nervous-system Gradient.
Use the map to see how a shift in state changes what becomes available: body information, perception, emotion, empathy, repair, and the capacity to stay connected.
Connection / Belonging
also known as social engagement
Autonomic pathway parasympathetic · ventral vagal
Pattern A · safety → reciprocity
Safety with others — social engagement and co-regulation are available.
Safety through connection
PerceptionWide social field: people and context stay readable
Perception in this pattern
The field is wide enough to include another person as safe and separate. Facial expression, tone, timing, context, and shared meaning can be read without defensive narrowing.
Grounding science
Research on social perception, attachment, and co-regulation grounds this: safety with others keeps face, tone, timing, context, and shared meaning readable.
One possible shift
From connection to protection—and back toward repair
Imagine a change in tone during an important conversation. The event stays the same, but what the body expects—and therefore what the person can notice and do—may shift.
A↔B · Safety checking
Uncertainty becomes louder
A delayed reply or change in tone draws attention. The system checks distance, timing, and signs of rupture while clarification is still possible.
B · Protection
Threat organizes the response
Attention narrows. Defending, withdrawing, appeasing, pursuing, or setting distance may become more available than perspective or repair.
Return · Regulation and repair
More capacity becomes available
With enough safety, time, support, or boundary, the field can widen again. Impact can be named, perspective can return, and repair may begin.
This is one possible pattern, not a universal sequence. Context, impact, repetition, power, and available capacity still determine what the pattern means and what response fits.
What the gradient explains
From state shifts to relationship patterns
The Gradient connects changes that are often considered separately. It helps a reader examine what the body is preparing for, how attention and emotion change, what happens between people, and what conditions may allow repair—while keeping impact, accountability, and boundaries in view.
Emotion as information — feelings can signal body state, need, boundary, impact, or repair without becoming automatic fact.
Why care is not always enough — under threat, empathy and repair can narrow even when care is present.
How rupture repeats — a short-term shift can become a familiar pattern of distance, defence, withdrawal, or pressure for certainty.
How protection can become control — repeated protection may organize around managing, testing, pursuing, avoiding, or overriding another person's options.
What repair requires — repair depends on enough capacity for impact, empathy, accountability, boundary, and changed pattern to become available.
Learn how to read the GradientTEG-Blue Overview
The map
Gradient states and shutdown fallback
The Gradient runs from physiological baseline through social engagement, protection, strategic management, and power mobilisation. Shutdown is shown as a fallback outside the line: a conservation state that changes perception, cognition, awareness, empathy, action, and repair, but does not extend the gradient itself.
- XBaseline
Safe & at rest · SAFETY · rest-and-digest · parasympathetic
Physiological baseline — regulation and broad capacity are available.
Chronic — Elevated baseline — rest does not fully land
- AConnection / Belonging
Safe with others · SAFETY · social engagement · parasympathetic · ventral vagal
Safety with others — social engagement and co-regulation are available.
Chronic — Connection / Belonging — safety is performed or approximated without settled access
- A↔BSafety Checking
Is it still safe? · UNCERTAINTY · belonging at risk · parasympathetic → sympathetic
Relational uncertainty — the system checks whether safety still holds.
Chronic — Safety Checking — the safety question remains unresolved
- BProtection / Defence
Threat · THREAT · fight · flight · fawn · sympathetic
Threat — mobilisation prioritises boundary, distance, or defence.
Chronic — Protection / Defence — mobilisation stays held
- CStrategic Management
Persistent threat · PERSISTENT THREAT · control / management · sympathetic + vagal brake
Persistent threat — cognition organises around strategic management and control of variables.
Chronic — Strategic Management — management becomes the held response to persistent threat
- DPower Mobilisation
Life threat · LIFE THREAT · power mobilisation · sympathetic
Life threat — power mobilisation overrides relational access.
Chronic — Power Mobilisation — force and control stay readily available as substitute protection
- ZShutdownoff-gradient
Capacity exceeded · CAPACITY EXCEEDED · freeze · collapse · parasympathetic · dorsal vagal
Capacity exceeded — active mobilisation drops and conservation becomes primary.
Chronic — Persistent Shutdown / Collapse — capacity stays exceeded
Research
What research supports—and where its limits are
TEG-Blue organizes existing research into a visual framework. Established science grounds specific parts of the map; no single source is treated as proof of the whole architecture.
Each part of the map is checked separately: body state, perception, thinking, activation, emotion, access to other people, action, repeated patterns, and repair.
Mode
how the pattern feels and presents in lived experience.
State
how the nervous system is organizing attention, energy, and response.
Configuration
how mode and state appear together, either as a short-term shift or a pattern that keeps returning.
Gradient and autonomic state
Autonomic neuroscience, neuroception, and stress physiology ground the safety-threat axis, mobilisation, inhibition, chronic load, and return. · Porges · Sapolsky · McEwen
Perception and cognition
Cognitive science, appraisal research, attention, prediction, cognitive load, and state-shaped perception ground the narrowing or widening of the field. · Barrett · Kahneman · Bower
Awareness and body signals
Interoception and body-awareness research ground the way inner signals become available, muted, narrowed, or difficult to name. · A. D. Craig · contemplative research
Emotion and action readiness
Affective neuroscience and emotion science ground emotional salience, body signals, urgency, and action readiness. · Panksepp · Damasio · Barrett · LeDoux
Relationship and repair
Attachment, interpersonal neurobiology, trauma research, and developmental research ground proximity, rupture, protection, co-regulation, and repair. · Bowlby · Siegel · Levine · van der Kolk
Context and scale
Psychology, social psychology, sociology, and anthropology locate overlapping parts of the map without owning the whole architecture. · Contextual grounding
The Scientific Grounding page explains which research areas support each part of the map and where each claim stops. Read the scientific grounding.
Use and attribution
Authorship and use
TEG-Blue, The Emotional Gradient Blueprint, and The Nervous System Gradient were created by Anna Paretas-Artacho. Original public written framework content is published under CC BY 4.0: attribution is required, and reuse should link back to the source. View license.
Marks, logos, tools, code, Engine logic, product surfaces, and third-party materials are excluded unless otherwise noted. Applied builds, institutional implementation, product integration, and reuse of Engine or tool logic require written permission.
Questions
Common questions
What is TEG-Blue?
TEG-Blue is The Emotional Gradient Blueprint: a research-grounded visual framework for reading how emotional, nervous-system, relational, and repair patterns form and change.
What is the Nervous System Gradient?
The Nervous System Gradient is the current central public map inside TEG-Blue: a visual map of how emotional, bodily, and relational patterns shift across safety, threat, control, shutdown, regulation, and repair.
What does the Gradient help readers notice?
It helps readers notice how a state can shape perception, emotion, body activation, behaviour, empathy, accountability, and repair capacity without turning a visible pattern into diagnosis or motive certainty.
What is the difference between a passing state and a chronic one?
Some protective states move. Other protective patterns become repeated, rigid, or hard to leave. This distinction helps read patterns over time; it is not a public typology or a verdict about a person.
What research is TEG-Blue grounded in?
TEG-Blue organizes established research into a visual framework. Sources ground specific parts of the map; no single source is treated as proof of the whole architecture.
Can TEG-Blue diagnose people?
No. TEG-Blue is educational and reflective. It can help read observable patterns, effects, boundaries, and repair needs, but it cannot identify someone's true internal state from the outside.