How to recognise fight, flight or freeze
The understanding of trauma is fundamental to health. We’re all hardwired to respond to overwhelming experiences in the same way. We contract away from danger, we run, jump fight or shutdown. The control mechanisms (nervous, hormonal and immune) take us immediately...
Links between pain and trauma
Links between pain and trauma Polyvagal theory developed by Dr Stephen Porges is very influential in the trauma world. The essence of polyvagal theory is that feeling safe is the fundamental drive for humans. If there is the perception of danger ('neuroception' is the...
Can feeling your body lessen anxiety?
Understanding how anxiety is created by our nervous system trying to protect us, and how our fight-or-flight mechanisms can get stuck, can significantly lessen the fear experienced during anxiety attacks. I’m deeply curious about how minds and bodies interact. I am...
How does changing the body change how we think, feel and remember?
From my mid-20s onwards, the question ‘how do we feel?’ has been a fascination for me. How do we construct our experience? What are our beliefs and how does that affect our experience of our bodies? Volunteering with people with learning difficulties and then working...
Pain, Perception, Trauma and Safety
Why is it that two people can experience the same stressful event, but have very different outcomes? I recently joined Avni Trivedi on the Speak From the Body podcast to talk about deepening feeling, changing the narrative and addressing stress, pain and trauma. We...
Pain Is Really Strange: Slides from Embodiment and Pain Day 2020-06-13
Slides from Steve Haines talk on pain at 'Embodiment and Pain Day' 13 Jun 2020, hosted by The Embodiment Conference. https://embodiedfacilitator.com/pain-day/ Parts 1 and 2 of slide show [pdfjs-viewer...
Touch and Trauma: Slides from Embodiment Conference 2020-05-30
Steve Haines presentation slides @ Trauma Education for Facilitators 30 May 2020.https://embodiedfacilitator.com/trauma-education-day On the panel with Dr Stephen Porges Part 1 Why Touch [pdfjs-viewer...
How to Find Safety During the Pandemic
The amount you’re affected by an unprecedented event like this current pandemic depends on your resources and your relationship to health. We all do the best we can, given our history and current circumstances. Many of our responses are rooted in primitive reflexes...
Finding Safety: Trauma and the Body, Steve Haines, Somatic Movement Summit 2020
Finding Safety: Trauma and the Body What is trauma? When your physiology is stuck, you are stuck. Trauma can be defined as being stuck in protective reflexes. Dissociation is a protective reflex most people are unaware of. In my experience, most people dissociate most...
10 Ways to Work with Anxiety in Times of Crisis
Many people are experiencing more anxiety than usual in the face of the global pandemic. Whether you’d like some guidance for your own anxiety, or you’re working with people who need extra support, I hope these ten approaches help you to feel more freedom and ease....