Therapeutic Movement - Your Heart-Brain Axis

This blog is taken from my previously recorded Therapeutic Movement Class and supports Chapter 6 of my Nine Foundations of Whole Health Natural Health Webinar (available to Whole Health Members) on Your Heart-Brain Axis. See my previous blog for more info on that chapter.

What this session offers

This therapeutic practice is designed to support the Heart-Brain interface and to encourage the two-directional conversation which is ever present. We explore how much of that communication reads as “brain up, heart up to brain,” and how bringing compassion, loving-kindness and friendliness to the heart area plays a real, palpable role in regulating our autonomic nervous system and our capacity for self-soothing and presence. 

The session gathers together practices that are supportive and invitational, tending to ourselves, noticing where we are, and encouraging a middle way of presence. We use touch, breath, and gentle holding to bring attention to the heart and the belly and to foster that heart–brain dialogue.

Props and comfort

For this practice have a bolster, a cushion and a blanket to hand. These supports help the body relax and create a safe container for attention. If you like, have something small to hold or rest on your body; even placing a hand on the thigh, close to the belly, can provide gentle grounding.

Touch, rooting and kindness

Placing the hand near the belly, the rooting of the body below the navel, invites us to listen into our needs beneath the surface. This kind of contact holds support for the lower areas, for our sense of being grounded, and creates a space from which kindness to the heart can arise.

Breath and the heart–brain connection

Pay attention to the rise and fall of the rib cage. Noticing the breath and the heart’s rhythms offers a route into parasympathetic soothing. If the heart pumps faster, the breath and gentle attention can offer a rooting, calming tone to the nervous system.

Settling in

Take your time to settle, make yourself comfortable, and let the body relax. This practice invites slow, attentive presence - a kind, embodied way to strengthen the conversation between heart and brain and to allow regulation and self-soothing to unfold.

This blog is taken from my previously recorded Therapeutic Movement Class and supports Chapter 6 of my Nine Foundations of Whole Health Natural Health Webinar (available to Whole Health Members) on Your Heart-Brain Axis. See my previous blog for more info on that chapter.

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