Why “grounding” requires more than just the feet touching the ground?
We often utilize the word “grounding” when we talk about ways to soothe the nervous system, but it is more complex than that. The brain does not simply rely on the soles of the feet touching the floor to feel safe, but instead, it maintains an ongoing internal model of gravity based on ongoing inputs from the visual-, vestibular- and somatosensory systems. Gravity influences all of our physiological systems, but because we lack a dedicated sensory organ for gravity, the brain relies on this multi-sensorial integration to understand body positioning in space which creates our internal model of gravity.
What does Your brain need to do in order to get you to change the Behaviors that are damaging your health and wellbeing?
A Call for Safety over Structural Fixes
In the presence of long term chronic symptoms or recurring symptoms, your brain is alerting you to potential threats to your survival. It is calling for emotional safety, boundary setting, and self-care, not just physical interventions.
Ignoring basic bodily needs—such as hunger, fatigue, or cold— or putting aside one’s own emotional and psychological needs in order to be of service to others, forces the brain into a state of chronic stress, leading it to activate emergency "protective responses" like anxiety, pain, and burnout. This happens when the brain’s alarm system detects chronic threats to survival and forces a change in behavior
So if you have been suffering from chronic pain or other chronic stress related symptoms for already quite some time, then what might be what your brain tries to get you to hear which you aren’t`?
Because what your brain is likely trying to get you to hear is that your current life, emotional, or stress-management habits are unsustainable.
Trauma is not the event, it is the Response to what happened
Somatic approaches emphasize the mind-body connection by integrating awareness of body sensations with cognitive processes for to improve processing and integration of un-processed experiences. While the right-brain gathers information over what has been sensed, the left-brain makes sense of what has been sensed. So the goal is eventually to improve bi-hemispheric communication in the brains in order to improve emotional regulation which then in turn, enhances cognitive and behavioural functions, allowing an individual to better cope in situations which they might have found being difficult before.
The battle between becoming more of who you are and who you want to become
Self improvement is about looking into the future and asking: “Who do I want to become? What do I want to feel more off or feel less off?” About seeing our limitations and changing ourselves toward the better. These are often heavily colored by external expectations or societal pressure.
Whereas self-disovery is about focusing on the present moment. About asking: “Who am I? Where did I come from and how did it shape me into the person that I am now?” It is about gaining clarity and acceptance toward our current reality that is shaped by our past experiences, our strengths and limitations, values and habits allowing us to create changes that align with our authentic selves.
These two are not opposites, but without having worked on discovering who we truly are it is hard to set goals that truly align with our authentic selves, our morals and values as well as our natural strengths and limitations.
Customer Story - “From pain to performance”
“Today I have a whole new perspective on life and this calm and freedom I feel in my body is an amazing and empowering feeling. I no longer feel this “rush” to get to the next thing and I can actually just live in the moment. My breathing and daily exercises helps my nervous system stay calm and it is something I prioritize every day to reset and feel ready for a new day. It feels like I have gotten my life back and can truly live again, but in a healthier and more understanding way for myself. I understand my body’s signals and know when it’s time to slow down, and how to slow down.”
Customer Story - “It wasn't a diagnose I needed. I needed to get understood”
For the first time I met someone who did understand my struggle and did meet me like a whole human being - with both a body AND a mind that was connected and interacting. From her guideance I did start to UNDERSTAND my body and why I had all these symptoms and how to slowly build a way out from them.
I didn't get a diagnose. But I got something much more valuable for me; I got a path to travel and many many tools to help this body mind system to find a more constructive and sustainable way of living. A way, which by time, did actually make my (chronic) symptoms and pains to slowly fade away, as I never believed was possible. And it wasn't only the bodily symptoms that faded away, I have learned how to calm down an overloaded nervous system and changed the way stress impacts my system - which I absolutely didn't expect or even knew was possible.”
Customer story - “My story about an aching body and about neglecting my emotions”
“The way we started to balance the breathing, the nervous system and the mind was completely different from what I had tried before and it also started to work. For the first time in years, I started to be cautiously hopeful, as I started experiencing moments when I felt better, my back pain that I had tried solving with massage for years started to subside, my breath started to flow quite effortlessly and the exercises she gave me felt good.”