Our brain’s need for our physical antennae

Our brain’s need for our physical antennae

by | Apr 10, 2025 | Blog, Nervous System Health, Video

In this video, I talk about becoming more aware of how you use your senses – the physical antennae that monitor the physical world around you. They help regulate the nervous system and they give the brain the right information to attune itself to the here and now.

An important task for our brains, as the incoming information helps the brain create a predictable outcome to face the situations life brings us as efficiently and energy–savingly as possible.

When our brain does this successfully, we experience it as having the energy to do the things that are meaningful to us, and to have a sense of ease, peace, and joy as we move through our daily lives.

Rooting in yourself

Rooting in yourself

by | May 11, 2024 | Blog, Chakradance, Changing the story, Movement as Medicine

In my retreats at Jardin de Luz, I often include one or more Chakradance sessions.

While dancing through the base chakra myself, I came upon the themes of belonging and birthright. I know that there are many people who struggle with a deep feeling and belief of not being welcome, not being wanted, or feeling that they have no right to be there, to exist. There often is a fear of feeling the intense emotions that these deep experiences and beliefs bring into the body.

I struggled with it myself. And it caused me to feel deeply insecure and anxious about who I was. I worked hard to feel accepted by others, and to avoid pain. I used to have a strong inner voice constantly alerting me to possible signs that no one was waiting for me, and that I was not wanted. I was hyper-vigilant and sensitive. I was constantly aware of my surroundings, other people’s emotions, the energy around me, and another person’s slightest (inner) movement. At the slightest thing, I shot out of my body like you might jump up from a chair startled when stung by a wasp.

Thankfully, this lonely, fearful time has long passed. I have found a warm home within myself, within my body. Six months after I moved to Spain and a few months after I completed the Chakradance facilitator training, I wrote a few lines about it that you can read below.

For me, connecting and working with the archetypal energies that flow through my body and circulate in my energy field helped me find peace within myself and grounding in my body. From this safe base in my body, I can feel myself, be myself in new encounters and relationships. And in challenging moments, I now also feel the inner support and safety of my body.

Why can it be so powerful to work with archetypes creatively as we do in Chakradance?

Archetypes are the basis of all the underlying, unlearned, instinctual patterns in our behavior. They exist in our human collective consciousness and are embedded in our psyche from which they influence how we move through life and perceive, feel, think, and act.

Dance is like a mirror in which we see the archetypal energies at work in our energy system. We can clearly feel where they bring imbalance and distortion to our energetic make-up. It offers us a conscious way to connect with these archetypal energies and change how and where they affect us.

In this way, deep instinctual patterns in our behavior get a chance to transform. This changes not only our perceptions for the better, but also how we feel, think, and move in relation to others and our environment.

“I can only belong when I allow myself to belong to me”

Dancing with your base chakra ‘Muladhara’, helps you dissolve deep beliefs of not fitting in, of being alienated from your body, and feelings of fear, overwhelm, and insecurity. In fact, even longstanding patterns of physical tension and e.g. back pain can be released when the energy of the base chakra is better balanced. It also changes the vibration in your energy field and therefore the way other people perceive you.

Let your senses take you back to your heart

Let your senses take you back to your heart

by | Dec 28, 2023 | Blog, Body Intelligence, Nervous System Health, Somatic Wisdom

In this blog, I share how you can tap into the intelligence of your heart by engaging consciously with your senses to come home to yourself and find your inner peace after an upsetting event or news story or simply after a stressful day.

And what’s more, it also helps you, help your beloved, stressed animal feel better and calm her nervous system after an accident or epileptic episode. As I did with our newly adopted cat Uma who suffers from a neurological condition.

Uma’s story

It all happened around ‘cat’ dinner time. Uma suffered a short circuit in her brain, resulting in a seizure that manifested as epilepsy and hyperventilation. She spent hours between heaven and earth. We took turns watching over her. Halfway through the night, she wanted to move. She stood weakly on her feet. I could see her panic. She had no idea where she was or who she was. She couldn’t recognize her scent anymore. So she kept walking, stumbling, and bumping into everything. At one point she was so exhausted that her legs couldn’t carry her anymore, but she wouldn’t lie down. She was so scared. And so were we for her. By sunrise, we were dead on our feet. We didn’t know what else we could do to calm her down.

And then my heart took over from my mind and sent my senses out to play. I sat down next to her, with my feet well on the ground. And my eyes wandered around the room and lingered on a floor tile. From the corner of my left eye, I could see Uma. And as my eyes took in the floor tile, my ears received the sounds of the early morning-the heavy hum of a plane high in the sky, birds singing, the wind, my dog’s snoring, the murmuring of the trees, and Uma’s fast, pumping breath. I felt the movement of my breath, which carried silent grief, while a gentle breeze stroked the skin of my arm. The heavy summer heat pressed down on me. Drops of sweat ran down my back. While sensing, my thoughts became quieter and quieter. Time stopped. I felt my weight rest heavier on the cough, my feet spreading out into the ground. My gaze softened and widened. I could feel Uma very clearly now.

From the corner of my eye, I saw that she had laid down. And while we were together in silence, receiving the surroundings in our hearts, I saw her breathing becoming quieter and quieter. Her eyes slowly fell shut. She began to doze off quietly into a deep, restorative sleep.

How aware are you in your heart?

All living beings have an energy field within and around their bodies. When these fields contact each other there is a subtle, very complex exchange of electromagnetic energy encoded with information. It is the language of all life.

One of the most mind-blowing books I’ve read is a book called ‘The Secret Teachings of Plants’ by Stephen Harrod Buhner. He states that the physical heart is the most powerful organ of perception in both humans and many animals because it generates the strongest electromagnetic energy field in the body. And the heart becomes even more perceptive when it is in a harmonious connection with the rhythms in the rest of the body and brain and with the rhythms of the universe, and Mother Earth. This is called heart coherence. It happens when we shift our consciousness from our mind to our heart.

The more coherence the stronger the information exchange can be. A coherent heart has variability in heart rhythm so that it can easily adjust to movement intensity, emotional experiences, and other internal and external processes. This has beneficial effects on brain processes, our physical-emotional vitality, connection to others, openness to learning, and the neuroplastic capacity of our brains. It helps every part of our system work together harmoniously, and function efficiently. This creates space for auto-regulation, healing, resilience, and growth.

Did you know that your physical heart is a highly sophisticated communicator?

The physical heart has a huge amount of highly specialized cells that receive and transmit electric magnetic energy waves filled with information, much like a radio transmitter and receiver carries the music. These specialized heart cells group to form many finely tuned antennas with a very broad reach. This way the heart receives infinitely many different energy frequencies at the same time. No other part of the body and brain has this extraordinary quality. When the heart’s electromagnetic field meets another electromagnetic field, interaction and synchronization start to happen. In this process, information is exchanged.

The heart decodes this deep information by altering its beating pattern, pulse wave, electric output, hormonal functioning, and neurochemical release. These changes in function send information to the rest of the body and the different parts of our nervous system. It also acts directly with our nervous system through neurochemical releases in the brain that directly alter nervous system functions.

What does this have to do with the senses?

Our heart enters a state of *coherence when we shift from analyzing, thinking, setting expectations, and commenting to what we perceive through feeling and sensing. When we leave our senses free to wander around and take in the surroundings, we enter into our hearts. We re-member ourselves as part of our natural family. Resulting in our heart rate starting to slow down. Also, our eyes soften, our breath slows down and deepens, and a cascade of transformational chemical processes take place in the brain that controls the autonomic nervous system, emotions, and cognitive functions. As our hearts are both sending and receiving, this state of coherence is then exchanged with another Being when our energy fields touch.

And so by the simple act of sensing my surroundings and listening to my sensations, and feelings, I could help Uma feel more peaceful and start resting her exhausted body.

When was the last time you took the time to let your senses wander freely without any expectation?

From being hard to a heart for yourself

From being hard to a heart for yourself

by | Dec 28, 2023 | Blog, Body Intelligence, Nervous System Health

Today I was working on a new online program ‘From Being Hard with Yourself to Having a Heart for Yourself’. And that brought back old memories from when I was still auditioning for dance. And the journey I made then, stepping out of patterns of insecurity, self-criticism, and sensory anxiety. I had to learn to have a heart for myself to build a caring, respectful relationship with my body and feel the life force, love, and lightness, to sparkle again.

Learning to feel and look at my body differently then, changed my dancing and also the way I dance through life. I experienced a renewed relationship with my physical self, my felt self, my dreams, and my environment. And to my amazement, this happened over time by changing the way I move: The Power of Movement and Dance. And most of all, the power of moving in a relationship.

It is all about relationship!

If there is a harmonious relationship between the muscles, bones, organs, and breathing, we experience softness, strength, and mobility at the same time. All members of the body can regain their place in our greater living system and our nervous system operates in sync with what is needed for the good life. That way our system operates efficiently and flexibly, allowing the energy to flow optimally again. There is interweaving, teamwork, support, and non-stop interaction between the members of our system: the body, mind, brain, and heart. This is where the path to lightness, energy, creativity, connection, and growth begins. The way that we as a system function is similar to the way other living systems work. Systems are about networks of relationships and the better the quality of a relationship the better the system works.

We sentient beings benefit from a well-functioning system physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. When there is constant conflict between body members we experience that as tension, stress, pain, or fatigue in our inner lives, leading to us being more quickly overwhelmed by our environment. Most people react to this by hardening, armoring themselves, and disconnecting from their bodies and their environment.

Our ‘movement mirror’

The dynamics in relationships within our bodies teach us about our external relationships with others and our environment. It is not for nothing that people say, ‘So inside, so outside’!I have noticed that when the various physical parts of myself are better attuned to each other and the energy flows optimally again, the judgments and convictions about others and myself dissolve and my capacity for (self) compassion grows.

So I came to believe that the way we move is a mirror for our thinking and feeling. When we move, stand, and sit more freely physically and experience more options in doing so, this will also be reflected in our thinking and feeling. Many people then experience more playfulness, and flexibility in their mind and emotional life and feel more resilient in their lives. They are more able to face the world with an open, uninhibited heart.

Conversely, restrictive thoughts and emotions that constrict us have a compressive effect on our cells. We feel our muscles tighten. The organs experience less space because of this muscle movement and can no longer do their work properly. The bones are pulled and the joints experience more strain. There is no longer a relaxed balance in standing and sitting. Our nervous system starts worrying about survival.

How then can we heal ourselves in wise ways?

Often people don’t think of changing what they do, think, or feel. They give the same input and expect the body to act differently. Their choices are often based on the separateness of body, mind, and soul, and the belief that the body is makeable.

Changing one thing in such a complex living system changes everything for the better or worse. When we look at the dynamics of living systems, just like us, there are a few systemic laws that I want to bring forward in this context:

  1. Living systems are interdependent – change in one part of the system influences other parts of the system in expected and unexpected ways
  2. Living systems cannot be steered or controlled, only attracted or nudged.
  3. Living systems are never static; they are always in movement
  4. Living systems only accept solutions that the system helps to create
  5. Living systems only pay attention to what is meaningful to them here and now.

Often our mind’s way of isolated thinking, and acting does not respect the laws of our system. This leads to changes that do not serve our well-being and limit our potential. Our nervous system slowly becomes overloaded with these unbalanced relationships and the resulting dysregulation. Eventually, it loses its flexibility, creativity, resilience, and zest for learning.

Systems are all about networks of relationships and the better the quality of these relationships, the better the system operates.

For that reason, when working with chronic pain, tension, stress, and distorted body image, I look at the relationship between body, mind, emotions, and spirit: the relationship between perceiving, feeling, imagining, thinking, meaning, and moving.

Check my YouTube channel for tons of free, short healing practices that approach our whole being and follow the life laws of our system to move toward joy, transformation, and growth.

What moves you?

What moves you?

by | Dec 28, 2023 | Blog, Body Intelligence, Changing the story, Movement as Medicine, Somatic Awareness, Somatic Wisdom

When it gets freezy underneath.

In 2021 I gave a presentation for the online Movement and Wellbeing Festival organised by Angela McMillan.

I gave a talk about ways to move “From freeze to flow” And as I was writing on my presentation, memories came to mind of childhood times when I struggled with fear, shame, and insecurity, unable to control my turbulent inner world that was constantly put on edge by being bullied and ridiculed. It resulted in a lot of uncomfortable physical sensations that I couldn’t control at the time. Eventually, I tried to get rid of them by dissociating myself from my body or somehow controlling it. Slowly, I slipped into a continuous, slumbering state of freezing. Not much later I developed an eating disorder, followed by other destructive numbing habits.

Freezing symptoms can linger just under the skin for long times keeping you from engaging in intimate connection with yourself and others. On the outside you may look like a happy puppy, people may praise you for being such a good listener, for being flexible, helpful or so loyal. But between the lines, suffering happens. It can manifest itself by withdrawing from situations and people, feeling very tired, lonely, and depressed, feeling chronically anxious in your skin, not knowing what you like, want, or don’t want, or what has meaning for you, having trouble concentrating and focusing, having trouble putting your money where your mouth is, or to get moving. Physically you can feel like you can’t hold yourself up, feeling tight, tense, and limp at the same time,  a lack of fluid movement and stability, or experiences of spatial unclarity, bumping into things, tripping, and hurting yourself.

Actually, we all experience freezy states on a daily basis.
Now more than ever! Many of us are living more in the head than in the body. Our smartphones keep us attached to the screen even when biking or crossing a road. Mental information forms the biggest part of our nowadays intake of information about our environment.

We live in an expectation- and performance-oriented society in which there is little room for spontaneity, authentic self-expression, or listening to the heart and senses. Many of our physical activities are about looking good rather than feeling good. Feeling present and alive in the body is not so obvious anymore. The pandemic certainly contributed to this disembodied life.

magic happens when you choose to follow flow

For a long time, I tried to work with the turbulent emotions themselves. It was yo-yo-ing between feeling okay and feeling down again. It took a toll on my health and made me feel less and less secure with myself. It was exhausting falling and crawling back up again and again.

Then by chance, I discovered the somatic movement approach of the Feldenkrais method. During the first session, I felt calm instead of cathartic. Just feeling good without having to go back into that dark hole first. Wow! As I continued to deepen my understanding of the Feldenkrais Method and other somatic-, and systems-oriented movement and dance approaches, I gained three very important insights:

  1. Where attention goes, energy flows
  2. Each of us is a living system, a complex fabric, of biology, energy, consciousness, and soul which are interrelated, interconnected, and interdependent.
  3. All living systems have an innate capacity for self-healing, thus so do we, if only we follow our system’s way of ‘thinking in relationships, integration, and interconnectedness’ instead of being a hierarchy divided into a mind, a body with parts, a soul and spirit.

I discovered how I had gotten stuck in a one-sided negative attention spiral of What’s Wrong. And I learned that thinking and emotions are only two channels of a huger somatic constellation through which we know ourselves, and by which a living system informs itself of inner and outer relationships. Most importantly I learned how to help my system prime for healing, nurturing all somatic information channels with the input of “What is. Through Perception, reconnecting with my senses, and learning systemically from the inside out through movement, and now-attention.

In many forms of therapy and coaching, the focus is on the somatic channels of emotion and thought only. The attention is on What is wrong; the former experiences, the trauma… Reliving the triggering emotions, and analyzing them. And I experienced that this starting point keeps reinforcing the pattern of suffering instead of helping our system to self-regulate and heal.

Leaving the old experiences and analyses alone for a while and spending time with my senses in the now, renewed my ability to feel pleasurable, comfortable, and easy sensations in my body. Sensations that invited me to stay in my body, feel safer in my body, gain trust in my being able to surf the emotional waves, and slowly create a greater capacity to deal with all of life, including former traumatic experiences.

It certainly didn’t happen overnight, no quick fix here. And that is exactly why the healing happened! Instead of forcing my system to suddenly change, I danced with the system through awareness, movement, stillness, and time, crafting my attention to what felt good. Gently offering options to my system, in addition to the one my system was used to. I learned to trust my system that it would choose what felt best to thrive in life in its own natural time and wisdom.

You can find my talk below:

In the Movement and Wellbeing Festival 2021 of Online Movement Academy, I shared a Feldenkrais somatic movement experience that has helped me and my clients to follow and flow with our systems and move from freeze to flow. You can listen and move with it below.

Better your foundation for more ease and support

by Pingel Braat

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NecbplsqrwCUdYHeQ0X6q3zWegW64_I-/view?usp=drive_link