Using embodied nervous system attunement to help people recognise, regulate, and return to themselves with dignity and care.

My understanding of nervous system states began very early in my life. After a near-death experience as a young child, my body seemed to pay close attention to the world around me.

I spent part of my childhood in Africa — curious, adventurous, and endlessly observant. I was the child who wandered off to explore, to understand, to feel the world directly. I was captivated by people, landscapes, sounds, and atmosphere. Even then, I sensed things through my body first.

Like many families, we went through a lot. From an early age, I learned to notice emotional shifts before they were spoken. I didn’t have the language for it then — I simply knew.

That sensitivity stayed with me. Over the years, it became something deeply woven into the way I relate to others.

Later in life, I experienced another near-death event due to domestic violence, when my life was threatened and I lost consciousness.

When I survived, my nervous system eventually returned with a clearer sense of what safety felt like — and what it didn’t. The sensitivity I had carried since childhood became more finely attuned and grounded.

From Survival to Understanding

As life unfolded, there were times when safety wasn’t certain — times when my nervous system had to stay alert to protect me.

In those moments, the part of me that could sense subtle changes became finely tuned.

I learned:

  • when someone was beginning to shut down,
  • when overwhelm was building beneath the surface,
  • when words didn’t match the energy in the room.

But as I healed, studied, and grew, something important happened:

What was once hypervigilance slowly transformed into attunement.

No urgency.

No fear.

Just clear, grounded awareness.

Before trauma-informed practice became a recognised framework or widely used term, many of us were already learning to understand trauma from the inside out. Not through theory, but through lived experience, reflection, and the slow work of making sense of ourselves.

My learning happened long before the language became mainstream — in noticing what calmed the body, what overwhelmed it, what restored safety, and what dissolved it. Over time, this became a way of being with others: listening not only to words, but to breath, pace, posture and presence. In that sense, becoming trauma-informed was not something I “learned” later — it was something that unfolded through my own healing.

I don’t imagine I have all the answers, nor do I believe there is one path that fits everyone. Healing is deeply personal. It has taken many years of learning, unlearning, reflection, therapy, regulation, and courage to arrive at a place where I can trust myself and discern what I sense. My confidence does not come from certainty — it comes from knowing myself, understanding my own nervous system, and being able to meet others from a place of steadiness rather than assumption.

Sensing Nervous System States

When I sit with someone, I can often feel:

  • the quiet drop into dorsal vagal collapse — when someone begins to numb or disappear inward.
  • the rising activation of sympathetic stress — the tightening, the bracing to cope or perform.
  • the warmth and presence of ventral safety — when someone is connected, at ease, and available.

I sense these things through:

  • breath
  • silence
  • posture
  • the emotional “temperature” of the space between us

Not as alarm anymore.

But as information that guides gentle, respectful support.

Recognising Coercion and Manipulation in the Body

Coercion rarely begins with words.

It begins with subtle shifts in power and pressure.

I feel those shifts before they become visible.

Not because I am suspicious — but because my nervous system has lived through those patterns and learned to recognise them quietly and clearly.

The difference now is that I trust my body’s signals.

Not as fear — but as discernment.

This is not something that can be taught in a classroom.

It is lived, integrated, and softened through healing.

A Unique Offering

Many professionals learn about trauma through theory.

I learned about it first through lived experience — and then spent years transforming that knowing into grounded, compassionate, trauma-informed practice (long before the language of “trauma-informed care” became widely known).

Today, this embodied sensitivity is the foundation of my work.

My work isn’t about trauma stories. It is about helping people return to themselves — gently, respectfully, and with dignity.

Because I know what it is to lose connection.

And I know what it is to find it again.

I now offer trauma-informed consultancy, workshops, and therapeutic support for individuals, families, and organisations who want to create environments where people feel safe, understood, and able to reconnect with themselves.

My work is grounded not only in professional training, but in a finely tuned, embodied awareness of the nervous system. I am able to sense dysregulation before it becomes overwhelm, recognise shutdown before it turns to withdrawal, and support people to return to safety gently and with dignity.

If your organisation, team, or community is ready to move beyond theory and into felt safety, relational presence, and nervous system-informed practice, I’d be honoured to collaborate.

This is work that changes lives — from the inside out.