Join me
by the
Hearth

Imagine looking through the viewfinder of a camera, the opening of a kaleidescope, or the facets of a crystal. Your nervous system is the lens through which your awareness experiences and interprets your own body and the world around you. What happens to the world when that lens is distorted? The nervous system is also the site of connection to the material world, to others, to ancestry, and to the understanding of self. The other side of this coin is that it is the site of disconnection and wounding too, which can distort the lens and make the body a difficult place to spend time in. A body that holds trial, hurt and trauma is going to experience a different world than one that knows safety and stability. But that's not where the story ends The nervous system carries the physical, conscious and unconscious patterns and programming that shape and have been shaped by your unique life. It is the mind-body connection. By rewiring it you change the lens, and by changing the lens, you change the lived experience and the perception of the world. When the lens is clean the world appears clear and vibrant. This is what is at the foundation of the phrase "Tend the inner garden and the outer garden will grow." Let's go even a step further. What if the path to healing leads through emotions, experiences or goals that are too big or unsafe for your nervous system to handle right now? Insisting they come to the surface with somatic practices (like movement, breathwork, or psychedelics) can overwhelm the system creating more harm than good. Yet emotional repression and expression is often what underlies the parts of us that we most want to heal and change and working with them happens in the body, limiting the benefits of traditional talk therapies. This is where Neurosomatic Intelligence comes in. Where the process of rewiring your nervous system begins isn't about re-living the past, diving into the depths of your emotions, or understanding beliefs. It is about expanding the container so that it is possible to hold all these things without dysregulation. As the capacity and energy of your nervous system expands it makes room naturally for things to arise, be acknowledged and healed. It is like a stepping stone between talk therapy and somatic release. This is where body safety is created, which is the foundation of resilience. Safety isn't just about feeling comfortable, without it your brain remains in a physiologic state that is resistant to change. For your whole life your brain has what's called neuroplasticity, which is the ability to rewire and adapt to new experiences, but it needs safety in order to use this superpower. To a stressed out brain anything new is a threat and it will resist (even new thoughts and things you know would be beneficial). To a brain in safety, new is exciting and the brain can reshape itself around the new input. It is also important to recognize that no nervous system exists in a vacuum. We are constantly co-regulating with one another (and the non-human beings and environment too); our communities. Not only that but our bodies carry what is called implicit memory that goes back before you were old enough to form recall memory like you think of as memory today. And it remembers many generation back, through DNA, epigenetics and in the way nurture is passed down unconsciously. Whatever challenges or successes you are facing, you are not alone with it, and it didn't start with you. You are the answer to your ancestor's prayers and as you can forgive the parts of them that live in you and give them back the burdens that were never yours to bear, you can live more and more with heart open to the world and have that openness embraced and reflected back. Treating yourself with gentleness and kindness and giving yourself permission to belong to this world is not easy, in fact it is the harder path to walk. It's easy and familiar to react, judge, abandon and shame. It's hard and it's courageous to choose to hold yourself with all your messy imperfection, recognizing that this is the human story you are an integral part of. I encourage gentle, sustainable actions that expand your capacity to encompass your dreams rather than overextending outside of your capacity to grasp at them. Like the tortoise and the hare, small, steady steps actually end up being faster.