The Healing Blog
Practical, body-centered tools for calming your nervous system, easing chronic pain, and reconnecting with yourself, drawn from Somatic Experiencing®, Feldenkrais®, Craniosacral Therapy, and Havening Techniques®.
What to Expect in a Trauma-Informed Bodywork Session: How Touch Helps Heal Trauma and Regulate the Nervous System
When people ask me what trauma-informed bodywork looks like, I usually explain that it’s a gentle, hands-on approach that helps the body (and nervous system) find its way back to regulation and safety.
What is Medical Trauma: Why It Stays With You and What You Can Do
You’ve been through a medical procedure or intervention — either planned or unexpected. It’s over and you’re home. It’s been months or even years and you’re still feeling upset about how you were treated or about something that happened, but your rational mind is telling you “it’s over, let it go.” But you can’t.
How to Map Your Own Nervous System
It’s helpful to be able to identify where you are on the nervous system “map,” so that you know what type of tools and exercises will be the most helpful to get to Ventral vagus state of connection and safety.
Somatic Exercises to Take You From Freeze State to Safety and Connection
When working within the Polyvagal nervous system regulation framework, we know that in order to bring someone out of a freeze and dissociated state, we need to gently mobilize their nervous system within their capacity. Here are some effective somatic exercises for working with the freeze state.
Trauma Informed Bodywork and Somatic Experiencing® for Narcissistic Abuse
The Feldenkrais Method® and Somatic Experiencing® are two robust somatic methods that help release chronic muscle tension and regulate the nervous system. One tool helped me learn to sense and feel safety in my body and to trust my own inner guidance again, while the other tool helped me release the powerful thwarted energy that got stuck in my body, causing me chronic pain and fatigue.
Calm Your Stress with These 4 Powerful Breathing Techniques
Did you know that slowing your breathing helps you calm down, and that taking a few minutes to do breathing exercises can help relax your mind and body, making it easier to cope with stress and anxiety?
Are You Stuck in Survival Mode? Look Out for These 8 Warning Signs
There are two main branches of your autonomic nervous system: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. Ideally there is a healthy balance between the two.
4 Handy Steps to Help You Practice Self Empathy
Self-empathy, or being capable of having empathy for yourself, helps you calm yourself during conflict or when you’re feeling stressed, angry, frustrated, anxious, afraid and other strong emotions.
Use This 5 Minute Self Care Practice to Ground Yourself
Havening is a psychosensory technique that calms the nervous system and help you feel grounded, calm and peaceful.
Here's the Technique You Need to Calm Your Mind and Transform Your Emotional State
Havening is a psychosensory technique that calms the nervous system and can help you feel grounded, calm and peaceful.
Transform Your Mind and Mood: How Gratitude Rewires Your Brain for Happiness
Doing this practice regularly not only shifts your mood, but it actually changes the neural pathways in your brain.
8 Surprising Benefits from This One Easy Restorative Yoga Pose
One of my favorite restorative yoga poses is Supported Child’s Pose! This restorative pose allows you to stay in it for a bit longer than the version without props, and provides all the amazing benefits of the more athletic version without any discomfort.
3 Tips for Recovering Your Body, Mind, and Nervous System
It’s often overwhelming to figure out the next steps to take to recover and restore yourself. Now, over 3 years later, I recommend a triad approach that includes emotional/mental, medical/functional medicine and physical/nervous system repair.
Want to Beat Insomnia? Here's the System You Need For Better Sleep
We lie down in a comfortable position, close our eyes and for many humans, this is sufficient to create the internal and physical conditions necessary for sleep.
How to Harness the Power of Food to Regulate Your Nervous System
What you eat makes a difference in your mood.
If you’re stressed or anxious, then it’s even more critical to nourish yourself in a healthy way. But unfortunately, many of us use our chronic stress as an excuse to overindulge in foods we know are bad for us.
3 Ways to Regulate Your Nervous System When You're Stressed
It can take less than 20 minutes to feel calm, relaxed muscles, easy breathing, calmer mind, at peace, and balanced emotionally.
Empower Your Body: Understanding the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems
We have two main aspects of our autonomic nervous system that both perform very different functions.
How I Restored Myself with The Feldenkrais Method®
In 2015, I had moved from Denver to Washington, DC to be with someone with whom I had fallen in love. But within weeks of arriving, red flags began to appear. I made excuses for each thing because I loved this man and believed he was the person with whom I would spend the rest of my life.
How the Feldenkrais Method® Helps to Alleviate Stress and Chronic Pain
The Feldenkrais method is a process that helps a person shift out of old patterns for good. It helps you identify and change habits that might be causing you pain and discomfort in exchange for long-term healing and relief.
How to Balance Your Nervous System with Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy
Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy is a gentle, non-invasive hands-on treatment for the whole body where the practitioner listens to the system through her hands for any patterns of inertia or congestion.
