The Five Vayus: The Inner Winds of Breath and Movement

When we breathe, we don’t just move air — we move energy.
In yogic philosophy, this living current is called prana, and it flows through us in five distinct patterns known as the Pancha Vayus — the “five winds.”

Each vayu represents a direction and function of energy within the body. Together, they create a dynamic ecosystem that supports movement, digestion, speech, vitality, intelligence, and awareness. When the vayus are balanced, life feels effortless. When they’re disrupted, everything — from posture to mood — feels off-center.

1. Prana Vayu – The Inward Flow (Chest and Breath Inhale)

Prana Vayu governs inhalation and the movement of energy inward.
It resides primarily in the chest and head — the lungs, heart, and sensory organs.
When balanced, Prana Vayu brings vitality, focus, and inspiration. When disturbed, we may feel anxious, short of breath, or mentally scattered.

Modern science parallels this through the autonomic nervous system — particularly vagal tone and respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Gentle, slow nasal breathing restores Prana Vayu, activating the parasympathetic system and inviting calm alertness.

Over-breathing or hyperventilation, however, disrupts this system. Inhalation corresponds to the sympathetic drive of the nervous system, so when we habitually over-breathe, we overstimulate the system, feeding stress and inflammation.
Rebalancing begins with awareness — soft, subtle, nasal breathing to reclaim the natural rhythm of life.

2. Apana Vayu – The Downward Flow (Pelvis and Exhalation)

Apana Vayu governs elimination, grounding, and release.
Located in the pelvis, it supports digestion, excretion, menstruation, and emotional letting go.
When Apana is strong, we feel stable and rooted. When weak, we may experience constipation, anxiety, or difficulty relaxing and releasing.

Somatic movements like pelvic tilts, gentle hip rolls, and deep nasal exhalations help reawaken this downward flow. Breath and movement become tools of emotional and physical release — the antidote to chronic holding.

Apana is rooted at the base of the spine and flows through the legs. It’s the energy you feel at the end of the breath — the grounding pause before the next inhale. Associated with the root chakra (Muladhara), it represents safety and stability.
Every exhale is an invitation to surrender. As you reach the bottom of your breath, notice how life turns itself back inward — Apana gives way to Prana.
Inhale and exhale, life and death, expansion and contraction — each transition is the rhythm of existence itself.

3. Samana Vayu – The Balancing Flow (Core and Digestion)

Samana Vayu lives at the navel center, integrating the upward and downward energies.
It governs digestion — both physical and emotional — and represents assimilation, metabolism, and transformation.

From a scientific lens, it aligns with the enteric nervous system, the “second brain” of the gut, and its communication with the vagus nerve. Practices that coordinate breath with subtle abdominal movement, like the core breathing techniques in the Pneuma Yoga Method, harmonize prana and apana — uniting body and mind.

Samana Vayu animates the fire of life — Agni. Digestion needs heat; so does transformation. When Samana is strong, you feel a steady vitality at your center — your inner fire burns clean and bright.
This vayu flows in a circular motion around the abdomen, maintaining your metabolic balance and your inner stability.

4. Udana Vayu – The Upward Flow (Throat and Mind)

Udana Vayu governs speech, growth, and expression — the voice of our inner world.
It also directs the subtle upward current of consciousness, playing a vital role in meditation and insight.
When balanced, we feel uplifted, expressive, and inspired. When blocked, we may experience tightness in the throat, tension headaches, or difficulty speaking our truth.

Udana is strengthened through humming, chanting, and breath retention — techniques praised by both ancient yogis and modern breath educators like Patrick McKeown for improving resonance and oxygen efficiency.

Udana is the rising wind that holds the head high and the spine aligned. It corresponds with the length of the exhale and the upward rebound of the diaphragm into the chest. As you exhale, feel the warmth that rises — the subtle glow of inner fire meeting higher awareness.

5. Vyana Vayu – The Expansive Flow (Whole Body Circulation)

Vyana Vayu distributes prana throughout the body, supporting circulation, coordination, and balance.
It connects the inner and outer worlds — the still point between effort and ease. The moment of Vyana in the breath is the pause between inhalation and exhalation, where energy radiates outward to every cell.

Vyana corresponds to the circulatory and fascial systems, the body’s connective web that transmits both tension and intelligence. When we move with awareness, we awaken this whole-body connectivity.

Vyana also supports immunity and vitality, creating a subtle energetic field — your aura — that radiates well-being. Sit still and feel the tingling on your skin; sense the warmth that surrounds you. That is Vyana — the glow of prana made visible.

The Dance of the Five Winds

Together, the five vayus create a complete system of energetic intelligence.
They aren’t abstract metaphors — they describe how life itself moves within us, from breath to heartbeat to thought.

The Pneuma Yoga Method brings this wisdom into somatic and breath-based practice. Through breath re-education and nervous system retraining, we learn to direct prana consciously — restoring harmony where modern life fragments us.

Explore This Practice

To experience the five vayus in your own body:

• Try the Core Breathing or Spinal Column of Light class in the Pneuma Yoga Method series.

• Practice five minutes of slow nasal breathing, feeling energy flow inward (Prana) and downward (Apana).

• Follow with gentle twisting or side-bending to awaken Samana and Vyana.

Breath is not only life — it is communication with the intelligence that sustains it.
When we listen to that current, we don’t just breathe better — we live better.

Pranamaya Kosha: The Energy Body You’ve Been Ignoring

Most people think health is about muscles, bones, or maybe even mindset. But yoga points us to something subtler: the koshas, or “sheaths” of being. These are the five layers that make up human existence — from the physical body to the bliss of pure consciousness.

The second layer of you is your pranamaya kosha. it acts as the bridge between the body “anamaya kosha” and the mind “manamaya kosha.” It is the Pranamaya Kosha, the energy body, that links consciousenss to the physical body, it is the flow of intellegence from cell to cell, animates every movement from thoughts to digestion to actions and can greatly enhance your health and vitality. Think about your body as “hardware” and your mind as “software” and you pranamaya kosha as the electirical socket that powers both.

This kosha is not made of flesh or thought, but of prana — the vital life force carried by the breath. Where your breath goes, energy flows. Where energy flows, health and awareness expand.

What Makes Up the Pranamaya Kosha?

The pranamaya kosha is a living network, described by yogic science in terms that modern physiology is only beginning to catch up with. It consists of:

• The Pancha Vayus – five directional flows of prana (upward, downward, inward, outward, and integrating) that organize movement, intellegence, digestion, circulation, elimination, and subtle awareness.

• The Nadis – subtle channels (tradition says 72,000) through which prana moves, much like rivers of energy. Ida (left nostril), Pingala (right nostril), and Sushumna (spinal chord, central channel) are the three primary nadis. Hence all the alternate nostril breathing!

• The Chakras & Marmas – energy centers and points of intersection where nadis converge. Chakras are like transformers that step down subtle energy into usable vitality. There are seven main chakras and 114 total chakras.

• Energy as a Whole – the sense of vitality, radiance, or depletion that we all intuitively feel, even without words for it.

This kosha is more than theory — you’ve experienced it whenever your breath carried calm into your body, or when stress left you drained. This body is more subtle than your physical body and is slightly larger. This layer is experienced as your breath, it rides the wave, but your breath is not you, it is the relationship with the atoms in the atmosphere. You breathe in and out to fuel your cells with energy, but this is not your physical body, your breath is something else entirely. See this as a whole completely different body and you gain so many more tools to access a deeper dimension of health, this is where vitality is manifested.

Why It Matters in Daily Life

When the pranamaya kosha is balanced, breath flows freely, energy feels abundant, and life itself feels lighter. When it’s disturbed, we experience fatigue, anxiety, shallow breathing, labored breathing, inflammation and physical pain.

Modern science echoes this: dysfunctional breathing patterns (like chest-only or mouth breathing) are tied to stress, sleep disorders, chronic pain, and anxiety. What yoga has said for thousands of years — breath is the bridge between body and mind — is showing up in research on the nervous system, vagus nerve, and heart rate variability.

Breath as the Doorway

Breath is the most accessible way to influence the pranamaya kosha. Unlike digestion or circulation, we can consciously adjust how we breathe. Every inhale and exhale shifts nervous system tone, posture, and emotional state.

• A rushed, shallow breath sends the body into fight-or-flight.

• Dull, heavy, labored breathing exhaust the nervous system and shuts down energy.

• A slow, steady breath activates the parasympathetic nervous system, easing stress.

• Subtle breath awareness can awaken interoception — the ability to sense inside the body — which is foundational for healing and yoga.

As Thomas Hanna taught about the soma, “If you can sense it, you can change it.” The same is true here: by sensing the breath, we begin to shift our energy.

Yoga Science Meets Practice

The yogic sciences go further:

• Pranayama practices refine the breath to direct prana consciously.

• Bandhas (energetic locks) and mudras help regulate and concentrate energy.

• Meditation expands awareness of prana beyond breath, into vibration, light, and spaciousness.

Even if you don’t practice advanced pranayama, simply slowing the breath, breathing through the nose, and noticing the subtle flow of prana is enough to begin nourishing the pranamaya kosha.

A Yogic Perspective

Yoga teaches that working with prana refines not just the body but the mind. Rajas (restless energy) and tamas (dullness) give way to sattva (clarity and harmony) when the breath is trained. The pranamaya kosha is where transformation begins — shifting us from living on autopilot to living with awareness.

Where We’ll Go From Here

This is just the start. In the coming weeks, we’ll explore:

• How dysfunctional breathing shapes stress and health

• Why subtle breath is more powerful than “big” breath

• The pancha vayus and their role in posture, digestion, and vitality

• Chakras and nadis as maps of the energy body

• How pranayama re-educates both breath and nervous system

The pranamaya kosha is the missing link between body and mind. By reclaiming your breath, you begin to reclaim your energy — and your life.

Want to Explore This More?

• Try the Breath Re-Education practices or the 61 point meditation in the Pneuma Yoga online library.

• Download guided meditations like “I Am Not This Body” to sense energy beyond form.

• Join a class or one-on-one session to explore breath and energy firsthand.

Your breath is more than air.
It’s the current of life itself.

The Trauma Reflex – When Life Pulls Us Off Center

Always Leaning, Always Bracing

If the Red Light Reflex curls us inward and the Green Light Reflex pulls us into “go mode,” the Trauma Reflex is the pattern that pulls us sideways.
It’s the subtle (or not-so-subtle) tilt that happens when one side of the body braces more than the other—often in response to injury, surgery, or emotional trauma.

The Trauma Reflex shows up as:

• One hip higher than the other

• Uneven shoulders

• A “C-curve” or scoliosis-like posture

• A limp or uneven gait

• Persistent pain on just one side of the body

Thomas Hanna described it as the body’s way of cringing away from danger. Over time, it becomes habitual, creating imbalance in the spine, pelvis, and even the jaw. Left unchecked, it can also contribute to digestive disturbances, jaw clenching, headaches, or even changes in breathing mechanics as the ribcage is pulled unevenly.

Fascial & Neurological Layers

In Anatomy Trains language, this reflex affects the spiral lines and the deep front line, creating rotational tension patterns. The fascial system doesn’t just transmit force—it holds memory. That means these diagonal bracing strategies are literally written into the fabric of your body.

The brain, meanwhile, encodes this as “normal,” leading to Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA) on one side of the body. You may not even notice you’re leaning, limping, or twisting until pain or fatigue sets in. This is why somatic awareness is such a powerful tool—it helps us rewrite the script where the brain and fascia have been looping the same old story.

My Journey with Side Dominance

I saw this in my own practice—years of tension pulling my pelvis slightly to one side. It wasn’t obvious at first, but the imbalance caused pain up through my low back and down through my hip. The hardest part? Realizing I was unconsciously protecting myself long after the injury had healed.

The more I slowed down, the more I realized how many blind spots I had. For years I thought my discomfort was “normal.” Only through consistent practice did I discover that my body was holding patterns from old experiences that my conscious mind had forgotten. That was humbling—and freeing.

Practices That Help

• Side Curl (Somatic Exercise): Reconnects lateral flexion and evens out side dominance. The movement is simple, but the key is awareness—sensing each rib and hip as you move.

• Washcloth Twist: Engages spiral lines to restore balance in rotation. This helps not just with mobility but also with breathing into the ribs.

• Diagonal Arch & Curl: Builds coordination between opposite shoulder and hip, retraining cross-body connections essential for walking.

• Breath & Awareness Practices: Especially helpful for noticing how one side expands less than the other. Simply lying down with a hand on each side of your ribs can reveal a lot.

These are not quick fixes. They are practices to be repeated, explored, and integrated into daily life. Over time, they don’t just reduce pain—they restore trust between your body and your nervous system.

A Yogic Perspective

Yoga reminds us of the principle of sama—balance and equality. When one side of the body pulls us off center, it also pulls at the mind and emotions. In yogic science, imbalance in the body reflects imbalance in the mind, breath, emotions and vice versa.

By working with awareness, we are not just correcting posture—we are restoring inner balance. When the body regains symmetry, the mind feels steadier, the breath deepens, and meditation becomes more accessible. This is yoga at its root: the union of body, mind, and breath.

Explore More

• Try the Side Curl Snack or Diagonal Arch & Curl on YouTube.

• Explore the Pneuma Yoga Method online library for guided classes that target the reflexes.

• Pair the movement with meditation—try the “I Am Not This Body” audio to feel the whole self beyond physical imbalance.

The Trauma Reflex doesn’t have to define your movement. With awareness, practice, and breath, balance is possible again. In fact, the more you practice, the more you realize that balance isn’t just about posture—it’s about how you move through life.

The Green Light Stress Response – When "Go Mode" Holds Us Back

Always On, Always Forward

If the Red Light Stress Response curls us inward in protection, the Green Light Stress Response drives us outward into action.
It’s the pattern of go-go-go. It pulls us into hyper-vigilance, readiness, and overdrive. And while that can help us meet deadlines, carry heavy loads, and push through fatigue, over time it wires tension deep into our back extensors, pelvis, and breath.

This pattern isn’t just about posture—it’s about culture. Many of us in America, especially, are raised on the ethic of productivity and “pull yourself up by the bootstraps.” But that drive often comes at a cost: chronic low back pain, shallow upper chest breathing, anxiety, and a nervous system that can’t quite switch off.

The Physiology of "Go Mode"

Thomas Hanna described the Green Light Reflex as the contraction of the back extensors—erector spinae, gluteals, hamstrings—pulling the body into an anterior tilt. The chest juts forward, ribs flare, the sacrum pulls up, and the pelvis tips forward to keep the body upright.

From a polyvagal perspective, this is sympathetic arousal in action. We prepare to “move forward” toward the challenge. But when the reflex never releases, we live stuck in readiness—like an engine revving all day without rest.

Symptoms of Green Light Stress Response often include:

• Low back pain

• Tight hamstrings and calves

• Anxiety and restless energy

• Upper respiratory (chest) breathing instead of diaphragmatic breathing

• Digestive issues from an overstimulated sympathetic nervous system

Rajas: The Yogic Lens

In yoga philosophy, this forward-driving energy resembles rajas—one of the three gunas, or qualities of nature.
Rajas is activity, movement, restlessness. In balance, it fuels creativity and action. Out of balance, it leads to overexertion, irritability, and scattered energy.

The Green Light Reflex, then, is the physical embodiment of excess rajas—pulling us into striving without rest, ambition without grounding.

My Journey with Green Light Patterns

For me, this showed up as an anteriorly shifted pelvis and years of persistent low back pain.
The hardest part? I didn’t even realize how much pain I was in until I started reconnecting to my body. For years, I told myself it was normal. It wasn’t.

Learning to feel my low back was humbling. At first, the tension felt immovable. It took patience, subtle movements, and an enormous amount of curiosity before my body felt safe enough to begin to release. And even then, the real challenge wasn’t the practice—it was the integration. My body wanted to snap right back into the old posture.

This is the heart of somatics: to feel, to re-educate, to gently remind the body again and again until the new pattern becomes the default.

Practices That Help Rebalance

Here are some of the tools that helped me—and continue to help my students—work with the Green Light Stress Response:

• Arch and Flatten (Cat/Cow or Supine Version): Gentle, somatic exploration of spinal flexion and extension to bring awareness into the back line.

• Supported Forward Lean (at a counter or table): Allowing gravity to assist, this position helps the back extensors release while the torso feels safe and supported.

• Yogic Squat (Malasana): This posture was revolutionary for me. It took practice, but holding it regularly retrained my pelvis, hips, and low back to find a new baseline.

• Yoga Namaskar (Sadhguru’s short practice): A simple yet powerful series that helped keep my extensors “happy” and mobile.

• Subtle Somatic Movements: Slow, mindful awareness practices that let the nervous system rewire from the inside out.

The real work, though, is remembering to bring this awareness into daily life. Sitting, walking, bending, even standing in line—all opportunities to pause, release, and re-pattern.

The Cultural Weight of Green Light

The Green Light Stress Response is not just individual—it’s collective.
Our society rewards “forward pull.” Long work hours, relentless productivity, and constant stimulation keep us revved in sympathetic arousal. Many of us wear this posture unconsciously, embodying the very culture we live in.

But here’s the truth: a body stuck in “go mode” eventually burns out. Chronic tension, anxiety, and exhaustion are not badges of honor. They are signals from your soma that something has to change.

The Pneuma Yoga Approach

The Pneuma Yoga Method bridges somatic re-education, therapeutic yoga, and breath awareness to gently unwind this pattern. By training proprioception and interoception, we learn not only to move differently but to sense differently.

We use the breath to settle the nervous system, somatic movements to retrain the back line, and yogic philosophy to remind us that balance—not endless striving—is the true goal.

Over time, this combination reshapes posture, reduces pain, and restores the ability to breathe deeply and live calmly.

Want to Explore Further?

• Practice the Arch and Flatten or the Red Light/Green Light Class on YouTube.

• Explore the Move Free series on the Pneuma Yoga site for guided somatic and yoga sessions.

• Try the Breathing Practices in the member’s area to rebalance sympathetic overdrive.

• Book a private session to address your unique patterns.

The Green Light Stress Response may be woven into our bodies and our culture, but it is not permanent. With awareness, practice, and patience, you can rewire these patterns and discover freedom where there once was tension.

Because when the body finally feels safe, it remembers how to rest.

The Red Light Stress Response: Unwinding the Front Lines of Tension

The Moment I Realized My Body Was Bracing for Life

I didn’t know it had a name at the time — but looking back, I lived in the red light stress response for years.
My head jutted forward, my shoulders rounded, and my chest collapsed inward. I thought it was just bad posture, but it was more than that. It was protective armor — the way my nervous system guarded itself from stress, illness, and even emotions I didn’t want to feel.

This forward-curled posture changed everything.
My breathing was shallow. My neck and back ached. I felt tired, edgy, and on guard. And no amount of stretching seemed to “fix” the pain. I would correct myself in the mirror but that felt put on and fake, I would sink back into my slumped posture, it looked sad, but didn’t feal awkward

It wasn’t until I discovered Hanna Somatics and the idea of neuromuscular patterns that I began to understand:

My body wasn’t “tight” by accident or slouched by mistake— it was stuck in a learned reflex, and my brain had forgotten how to let it go.

What Is the Red Light Reflex?

Coined by Thomas Hanna, the red light reflex is also called the startle response. It’s the instinctive action we take when we hear a loud noise, brace for impact, or feel emotional threat.
We round forward, tuck the chin, tighten the abdominals, and draw inward to protect our vital organs.

It’s a brilliant survival reflex — in short bursts.
But when life’s stresses are constant, that short burst becomes a long-term holding pattern. The nervous system begins to think this is normal. Muscles stay shortened and switched “on,” even at rest.
This is a form of Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA) — the brain simply forgets how to release those muscles voluntarily.

Why This Matters: Your Fascial Front Lines

Here’s where modern fascial anatomy adds depth to the story. If you look at Tom Myers’ Anatomy Trains model, two fascial “superhighways” run along the front of your body:

• Superficial Front Line (SFL) — runs from the tops of the feet, up the front of the legs, through the quads, abdominals, chest, and neck, all the way to the scalp.

• Deep Front Line (DFL) — the body’s deep stability system, including the iliopsoas complex, diaphragm, pelvic floor, and deep neck flexors.

In the red light reflex, the SFL shortens — pulling the chest inward, the head forward, and the legs into subtle flexion. Meanwhile, the DFL loses balanced tone, which affects breathing, stability, and the natural wave-like motion of walking.

Somatic Training: Rewriting the Pattern

The good news?
SMA and the red light reflex can be reversed. But the approach looks different from what most of us are taught.

In Pneuma Yoga classes, we start with slow, mindful movements called pandiculations — deliberate contract–release cycles that retrain the brain to sense and release the holding pattern.
We bring awareness to how the movement feels, not just how far it goes.

This is also where breath re-education becomes essential:
When the front body is collapsed, breathing becomes shallow and chest-heavy. By using subtle awareness and movement to free the diaphragm and expand the ribcage, we invite a more organic breath to return — one that calms the nervous system rather than fuels the stress loop.

Yoga Philosophy: Inner Posture Shapes Outer Posture

Yoga reminds us that prana follows awareness.
If the chest is chronically compressed, prana — the life force — can’t circulate freely.
When we open the front body with patience and awareness, we’re not just improving posture. We’re creating space for prana to move, for the mind to settle, and for meditation to deepen.

The yogic principle of ahimsa (non-harming) applies here: forcing the chest open can backfire.
Instead, we move from the inside out, so the nervous system feels safe enough to let go.
This is also an expression of sthira sukham asanam — a seat that is both steady and comfortable — whether that seat is in meditation or in how you carry yourself through life.

Try This Now: A Micro-Practice

1. Sit or stand tall, sensing your spine.

2. Inhale gently, letting your chest rise slightly.

3. Exhale, allowing the chest to soften and round forward just a little.

4. Slowly alternate between these two, noticing how your breath changes and where you feel tension release.

This isn’t a stretch — it’s a conversation with your nervous system.

Where to Go From Here

If you want to explore unwinding the red light reflex more deeply:

• Try my Red Light Stress Response Class — available on YouTube and in the Pneuma Yoga Method series.

• Use the “I Am Not This Body” meditation to connect with your body without judgment.

• Join a class or schedule a private session to experience somatic release and breath re-education firsthand.

This is just the start. In the next few weeks, we’ll take a deeper dive into the SCM, iliopsoas, and other key links in the fascial front lines — and show how releasing them changes everything from pain to mood to breathing.

Because your soma remembers.
It just needs a safe way to let go.

The Realization: I Couldn't Feel What Was There All Along

For a long time, I didn’t realize how much I couldn’t feel.

Not just emotionally, but physically.

My shoulders were always tight, but I thought that was just normal. My back hurt, but I assumed it always would. I didn’t realize I was disconnected from entire regions of my body—because I had gotten so used to tuning out the discomfort. And that, in essence, is what Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA) is.

Coined by Thomas Hanna, SMA refers to the loss of voluntary control over muscles due to habitual contraction. It isn’t that the muscles are injured—it’s that they’re stuck in a pattern your nervous system has forgotten how to release.

And because sensation and motor control are two sides of the same coin, we lose the ability to feel those areas as well.

This Is Why We Start with Awareness

The Pneuma Yoga Method begins not with performance, but with perception. The first thing I teach isn’t a posture—it’s awareness.

Because until you can feel what’s there, you can’t begin to change it.

As I progressed through my somatic journey, I realized I wasn’t just holding pain—I was holding tension in places I didn’t even know existed. My hips, my neck, my jaw, even my tongue. The moment I started paying attention, I saw that my body had been whispering for years. I just hadn’t been listening.

This work invites you to start listening again.

Going Slow to Feel Deeply

This is where interoception becomes vital. Interoception is the capacity to sense the internal state of your body. It’s not just a yoga buzzword—it’s a neurological skill that can be developed.

In somatic yoga, we use small, slow, deliberate movements to bring sensation back online. This is not about flexibility. It’s not about achieving a shape. It’s about sensing.

"If you can sense it, you can change it." — Thomas Hanna

Every time we move with awareness, we are laying down new pathways in the brain. We’re reminding the nervous system that we are safe, present, and able to choose a new response.

This is how we rewire old habits and begin to heal.

When It Feels Worse Before It Feels Better

Sometimes, this work stirs things up.

Because when you start to feel again, you may notice just how much pain or numbness you've been living with. But this is a necessary step. Just like cleaning out a wound, awareness can sting before it soothes.

You might find yourself thinking:

• I had no idea I was this tight

• I can’t believe I was walking around like this

• How did I not notice this before?

The answer is simple: you couldn’t feel it. But now, you can.

That’s progress.

The Power of Moving From the Inside Out

The Pneuma Yoga Method teaches you how to move from the inside out—with breath, sensation, and intention.

You don’t need to force your body into compliance. You just need to invite it back into awareness.

From there, mobility improves. Pain decreases. Stress unwinds. And most importantly, you reconnect with the part of yourself that knows how to heal.

Your soma remembers.

Want to Explore This More?

• Try the Red Light Stress Response Class on YouTube or in the Pneuma Yoga Method series.

• Download the "I Am Not This Body" meditation to begin sensing without judgment.

• Attend a class or schedule a private session to reconnect with your body's wisdom.

You don’t need to fix yourself. You just need to feel yourself again.

Explore more at pneuma-yoga.com

I Am Not This Body — A Meditation on Freedom and Inner Awareness

Rediscovering Who You Are (Hint: It's Not Just Flesh and Bone)

“You are not the body. You are not even the mind.”
— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

There’s a quiet revolution that begins when we stop identifying with our pain, our tension, and even our breath. For years, I saw myself as my pain—my GI issues, my old injuries, my emotional stress. I believed I was the knot in my stomach or the pressure in my chest.

But through breath and awareness, that identity began to shift.

In the Pneuma Yoga Method, we invite students to explore subtle movement and breath as a way to reconnect—not to control the body, but to witness it. The body becomes a field of sensation, not a prison of pain. And when you practice from this lens, something powerful happens: you begin to observe instead of identify.

This is where the meditation “I Am Not This Body” becomes a gateway.

What This Meditation Unlocks

The practice gently guides you to scan your body, feel your breath, and witness sensation without ownership. You're not trying to fix anything. You're simply listening. And the deeper you listen, the more space you find inside yourself.

This is the heart of interoception—your ability to sense your internal environment. It’s the foundation of nervous system regulation, emotional clarity, and true embodiment.

And as your awareness grows, so does your proprioception—the sense of where you are in space. These two skills together form the inner map that allows us to navigate life with balance, sensitivity, and ease.

Why This Practice Is So Effective

Most people live outside of themselves. We chase external solutions for internal problems. But this meditation brings you inward. And from that space of inner attention, the following begins to shift:

• Stress hormones lower as the parasympathetic nervous system is activated.

• Heart rate variability improves, a key marker of overall resilience.

• Chronic pain lessens as your brain updates its map of the body.

• Emotional regulation increases—you’re less reactive, more spacious.

• Your identity loosens—you begin to understand that pain, thought, or mood are passing waves, not who you are.

This is the bridge between the physical and the spiritual. Between the self we think we are and the deeper Self we can become aware of.

As Patanjali wrote in the Yoga Sutras:

“Tada drastuh svarupe avasthanam” — Then the Seer abides in Its own true nature.

This is not a mystical statement—it’s a functional truth. When we release identification with body and mind, we return to the spacious Self within.

Support for Your Journey

You can now explore this meditation in two formats:

• 🎧 Audio version available in the Pneuma Yoga Store

• 📹 Guided video practice in the Members Area

Each offers a slightly different tone and guidance, so you can return to whichever version supports your practice best.

If you’re a beginner to meditation or have struggled to stay consistent, this is a great place to begin. You don't need to force anything. Just breathe, feel, and follow the voice.

Practice In-Person

I'll be teaching a special Saturday morning class on July 26 at 10:00 AM, focused entirely on this meditation and the breath awareness practices that support it.

We'll dive into:

• Deep diaphragmatic breathing

• Gentle somatic movement to awaken awareness

• The practice of witnessing sensations without clinging or resisting

This class is free for members and open to all who want to feel more present, more relaxed, and more rooted in their inner space.

Final Thoughts

This isn’t just about meditation. It’s about freedom.

The more we practice, the more we remember that we are not our pain. We are not our patterns. We are not even our thoughts.

We are the awareness behind it all. And from that awareness, healing unfolds.

Join us this week in the practice.

🌀 I am not this body. I am the breath that moves through it. I am the space that contains it. I am the stillness that sees it all.

Explore now at pneuma-yoga.com

Your Brain's Secret Ally – The Power of Proprioception, Interoception, and Awareness

You Can't Heal What You Can't Feel

When I first started slowing down—really slowing down—I realized something strange: I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, but I realized I knew nothing about myself. I was completely out of touch with my body, breath and mind. I could not feel emotions, I blocked out aches and pains, I moved and breathed unconsciously, and my thoughts were constant- they were all over the place. I thought I had the answers, I thought I understood my body, I was completely wrong and I was overlooking the fine details, the actual language of the body. I realized that my inner awareness was mostly static.

I didn’t know where my ribs ended or if my breath was shallow. Where tension was, how I was supposed to move or breath. I couldn’t feel my feet, legs or my back unless they hurt and became fatigued, which, strangely, I realized was all the time? How could I not feel, yet experience fatigue and pain as normal? I dismissed these signals and considered it a normal feeling. I didn’t realize I was numbing myself and my body felt more like a vague outline rather than a living, breathing home.

And that’s when I started learning about two quiet superpowers:

• Proprioception — your ability to sense where your body is in space.

• Interoception — your ability to feel what’s happening inside your body.

Both are trainable. Both are essential. Both are often dulled by pain, trauma, stress, or fast-paced living.

And both are foundational to the Pneuma Yoga Method.

Proprioception: The Map of You

Proprioception is how you know your elbow is bent even when your eyes are closed. It helps you walk without looking at your feet, sit up straight without a mirror, and move with grace and ease.

But chronic tension, stress, injury, and repetitive patterns can dull this sense.

Over time, parts of the body become “blurry” in the brain’s map. The nervous system stops checking in with those muscles or joints. You lose precision. Movement becomes effortful. You start to feel clumsy, even stiff.

In Pneuma Yoga, we rebuild this map.

With slow movement, breath, and awareness, we bring clarity back to the brain-body relationship. We reconnect.

And when you can sense where you are, you can begin to change where you're going.

Interoception: Feeling From the Inside Out

Interoception is your ability to notice the sensations of your inner world—like your heartbeat, your breathing rhythm, gut sensations, or emotional shifts.

It’s how you know you’re thirsty or anxious. It’s what tells you when to eat, when to rest, and when you’re overwhelmed. And it’s crucial to regulating the nervous system.

When interoception is dulled (as it often is under chronic stress), we lose touch with our needs. We override discomfort. We miss early signals of burnout, fatigue, or emotional overload.

Rebuilding interoception means learning to listen again. It means tuning in instead of checking out. It means cultivating the subtle awareness that is the true gateway to healing.

Awareness Changes Everything

These two forms of awareness work hand-in-hand. And together, they:

• Reduce pain and tension

• Improve posture and coordination

• Enhance breathing

• Deepen meditation

• Support digestion and emotional processing

Why? Because they shift your system from reaction to relationship.

When you feel yourself clearly, you stop fighting against your own body. You begin to cooperate with it.

And that’s when real change happens.

Nociception: Pain vs. Awareness

Here’s a twist: Pain isn’t always caused by tissue damage.

Nociception is the nervous system's response to a perceived threat. But when the brain's body map is blurry, it often interprets disconnection as danger.

The result? Chronic pain that’s real, but not rooted in injury. The more disconnected we become from our body, the more reactive our system becomes.

Somatic practices restore coherence. We re-map. We reconnect. We re-pattern.

And pain, in many cases, begins to fade.

My Journey: From Foggy to Focused

When I started this path, I was more disconnected than I realized. Years of chronic pain, surgeries, and stress had numbed me out.

But as I practiced slow somatic movement, something shifted. First, I noticed tension. Then I noticed breath. Then I noticed me. This has taken tremendous time and practice, yet I continue to learn, to discover knew things about myself I never realized. It constantly amazed me how much I cannot sense and feel within my body. Stress and trauma have buried tension deep beneath my radar, and constant practice continues to unravel my tension and reveal deeper layers of bracing.

Ther have been dramatic releases where I felt so much shift that I was joyfully terrified to move because my body had shifted so greatly and I didn’t want to lose the feeling. There have been constless subtle realizations, like: "Oh... I can feel my shoulder blade now. Wow what is that all about?" Then, the next day, it is different and you have to practice again. It is a constant learning and relearning process that slowly changes the shape and understanding of your inner dimensions, that are seriously as vast as the cosmos. Each new discovery feels like a victory.

And those small wins changed everything.

They helped me build trust. They helped me stay consistent. They helped me understand that healing wasn’t about fixing my body—it was about learning to relate to it.

This Is the Work of Pneuma Yoga

In Pneuma Yoga, we use the following tools to awaken proprioception and interoception:

• Somatic exercises to increase sensory awareness

• Subtle breath practices to refine internal perception

• Meditation to observe without judgment

• Guided embodiment to bridge the body, mind, and nervous system

These aren’t big, flashy movements. They’re small, mindful ones.

They ask: What do you feel? Where? What changes when you breathe?

And from those questions, everything begins to shift.

Want to Start?

If you’re curious, begin with the guided meditations and practices inside the Pneuma Yoga Method:

• Try a free 10-minute somatic reset Fill ou the form on “the Deep Rest and Reset” page.

• Explore the Red Light Response class for full-body awareness

• Check out our membership with short videos, meditations, and full-length sessions

Because healing starts with sensing. And when you learn to feel again, you begin to heal again.

The body remembers. Your job is to listen.

Why You Can’t Just Stretch It Out – The Truth About Muscle Memory and SMA

What If Your Muscles Weren’t Tight... Just Asleep?

Most people think tight muscles need to be stretched.

But here’s the truth I learned the hard way: many of the aches, pains, and patterns we carry aren’t just physical tension—they’re learned. They’re built into our nervous system through repetition, habits, injury, trauma, and stress. And they’ve been hiding beneath our awareness for years.

When I first began this work, I thought I just needed to loosen up. But as I slowed down, I realized… I couldn’t actually feel certain areas of my body. I wasn’t just stiff—I was disconnected.

And that’s where I first met Sensory Motor Amnesia.

What is Sensory Motor Amnesia?

Coined by Thomas Hanna, Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA) refers to the loss of voluntary control and awareness of certain muscle groups due to chronic stress, trauma, or unconscious repetition.

Think of it like this: your brain creates shortcuts. When you move a certain way for years—hunched over, guarding an injury, holding in your stomach—your nervous system adapts. It stops “wasting energy” on awareness. The muscle keeps firing, but your brain no longer knows how to turn it off.

SMA isn’t just about posture—it’s a breakdown in the body-brain communication loop.

Stretching Doesn’t Fix SMA

Stretching a chronically contracted muscle might feel good for a moment, but it won’t create long-term change. Why?

Because you’re not retraining the brain.

You’re just tugging at tissue that’s stuck in a feedback loop.

To truly shift these patterns, you need somatic education—intentional, slow movements combined with awareness, which teach the brain how to sense and release the muscles from within.

This is why somatic practices, like those in the Pneuma Yoga Method, are so powerful. They wake up what’s been forgotten.

Personal Truth: I Didn’t Know How Much Pain I Was In

I used to think I was just “tight.” But the more I practiced, the more I realized: I was numb.

I had learned to ignore pain. To push through it. To pretend I was okay.

But deep inside, I was hurting—physically, mentally, emotionally. My body had become a storage unit for everything I didn’t want to feel.

Somatic awareness changed that. It taught me how to listen again. How to stop overriding the quiet whispers of pain, fatigue, and stress. How to be honest with myself about what I was carrying.

The process wasn’t easy. It got harder before it got better.

But in that challenge, I found something profound: healing comes through awareness—not avoidance.

Awareness Is a Skill

Learning to sense the body is like learning a new language. At first, it’s awkward. You don’t always know what you’re feeling. You second-guess everything.

But over time, awareness deepens.

In Pneuma Yoga, we use slow somatic movements and subtle breathwork to restore this connection. We guide students to:

• Sense specific muscles

• Move with intention

• Observe effort vs. ease

• Notice their breath and internal cues

And this awareness? It’s not just physical.

It seeps into your decisions, your emotions, your ability to regulate and process life as it comes. It becomes a new baseline for how you relate to yourself.

SMA Affects More Than Movement

Chronic muscular tension from SMA can compress organs, restrict breath, and create pressure around the digestive tract. It affects:

• Breathing: A tight diaphragm or abdominal wall leads to shallow, restricted breath.

• Digestion: Tension around the solar plexus impacts vagal tone and gut motility.

• Mental health: Chronic body tension signals “danger” to the brain, keeping the stress response loop active.

When you restore sensory-motor connection, you don’t just improve posture—you change your internal environment.

This is why healing the body can unlock emotional processing, mental clarity, and even spiritual insight.

We Rewrite the Script With Movement

In Pneuma Yoga, we don’t fight the body—we educate it.

Each practice is an opportunity to gently undo the knots, listen to the whispers, and repattern the nervous system with breath and movement.

As I moved through this journey myself, I realized: the body holds every story we haven’t finished telling.

And when we move with awareness, we don’t just stretch—we process, we integrate, we transform.

Final Thoughts

The truth is, nothing meaningful in life comes easy. The body doesn’t change overnight. And the deeper healing? It takes courage. Patience. Curiosity.

But it does happen. Slowly. Organically. From the inside out.

If you’re holding pain, if you’ve stopped listening, or if you’re just feeling stuck—start small. Start now.

And if you’re ready to begin?

Join me inside the Pneuma Yoga Method, where you’ll find:

• Short practices for sensory-motor reconnection

• Breath-led movement and meditations

• Guidance to help you feel again, heal again, and move forward with clarity

Because healing isn’t about fixing. It’s about remembering.

And your body remembers.

Explore the Pneuma Yoga Method now. Free guided meditations, somatic tools, and breath education available at pneuma-yoga.com.

You don’t need to force it. You just need to feel it.

The Breath That Brought Me Back

by Rick Fulton

I’ve been diving into the breath for over a decade.
Not floating through it.
Diving. Deep.

And it hasn’t been all light and ease. There was confusion. Missteps. Plateaus that felt like dead ends.
But something in me knew — the solution wasn’t out there.
It was inside.

The First Door: Wim Hof

Like many, I entered the breath through the front door of fire — Wim Hof. His method blew me wide open. It taught me how powerful breath could be. I learned to go deep, to override pain, to access a stillness I didn’t know was there. And I’m grateful for that.

But here’s the thing:
I had no idea what I was doing.
Neither, it seemed, did he — at least in terms of respiratory science.

I became a hyperventilator.
I trained myself to breathe through my mouth.
I felt high… but not well.

It worked, in a way. It cracked me open. But it also made me worse — more tense, more wired, more disembodied. I didn’t realize it then. But the seed had been planted.

The Second Door: Subtlety & Science

Years later, I discovered somatics. Subtle breath. Nervous system repair.

This wasn’t about force — it was about feeling.
I learned the value of nose breathing, of carbon dioxide tolerance, of breathing less to feel more.

This was profound. Life-changing.
It brought my nervous system down from the edge and helped me rebuild my health.

But eventually, I noticed something strange.
I was breathing less… but I was also feeling less.
The tension in my chest, my ribs, my pelvic floor — it wasn’t going away. It was hiding. I was using “subtle” to veil what needed to be seen.

I wasn’t wrong. I just wasn’t done.

The Third Door: Integration

The next evolution came through the ancient paths — pranayama, kriya, traditional yogic breathing.
Breath as prana. Not just air.

I revisited Wim Hof — but this time, with awareness.
I didn’t hyperventilate blindly.
I used strong breathwork to shake things loose, to break through stuck patterns, to wake up pranic channels and stir vitality.

And then I let it go.
I returned to the subtle.
But now, it was real.

What I’ve Learned

There’s no single right way to breathe.
There’s no final technique.

What matters is relationship — with breath, body, nervous system, and awareness.

I use strong breath to access energy.
I use soft breath to restore peace.
I teach both — because you need both.

But the goal is always the same:
To train the body to breathe lightly, effortlessly, and through the nose.
That’s the breath of healing. That’s the breath of life.

Next time, I’ll share the exact sequence I now teach — the one that weaves all these paths into one method. Until then, I’ll leave you with this:

The breath will take you where your mind can’t go.
And if you let it… it will bring you back to yourself.

Breathing Changed Everything (And It Can for You Too)

I never thought that breathing would change my life.

Not like this. Not in the quiet, subtle, inside-out kind of way. Not in a way that would make me feel more alive, more clear, more at peace. But it did. And it keeps doing it, every time I return to the practice.

You see, it didn’t start with some huge breakthrough or instant transformation. It started with curiosity. With discomfort. With not knowing.

And honestly? That’s where the real work begins.

The Courage to Not Know

When I first started retraining my breath, I thought I understood it. We all think we do—breathing is the first thing we do when we’re born. It’s automatic, right?

But as I went deeper, I realized something that might sound strange: the more I refined my breath, the less I felt like I understood it.

At first, this was frustrating. It felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me. I’d think, “I’m doing it right!”—and then I’d learn something new and suddenly feel like I knew nothing again.

But this... this is where the transformation begins.

When we say “I don’t know,” we create space.

Space for learning. Space for experience. Space for the breath to actually teach us something.

This is the attitude I now carry into every breath practice: not to master it, but to meet it.

Breath and Movement as a Mirror

Over time, I began pairing subtle breath awareness with slow, intentional movements. Somatics taught me that awareness—not intensity—is the key. That healing isn’t about doing more. It’s about listening more deeply.

Breath and movement became a mirror. They reflected how I was living, where I was holding, and what I was avoiding.

They also showed me that breakthroughs don’t happen every day.

But they do come.

They arrive like small openings, like a little more space in your chest, or a deeper exhale, or a thought that doesn’t get stuck in your head. And one day, without realizing it, you look around and think:

“I feel different. I feel better.”

That’s not a coincidence. That’s the byproduct of showing up, of breathing with awareness, of being curious even when it’s messy.

Health Is a Side Effect

When I talk about breath now, I’m not just talking about oxygen. I’m talking about the bridge between body and mind. Between anxiety and presence. Between autopilot and awareness.

Good breathing changes your physiology, yes. It improves digestion, immune function, heart rate variability. But it also changes how you feel.

And how you live.

Mental clarity. Emotional resilience. A sense of connection to something deeper—something you can’t always name but you know is there when your breath is steady and quiet.

This is the essence of the Pneuma Yoga Method. Not breath as a performance, but breath as a relationship.

You Can Do This

You don’t need to be flexible. You don’t need to know yoga poses. You don’t need to know where to start.

You just need a willingness to pause, to feel, and to not know. To meet yourself in the breath, in the space between inhale and exhale.

This practice is simple. Not always easy. But profoundly human.

If you stay consistent, if you stay curious, the practice will meet you where you are.

And one day—without warning—you’ll feel yourself shift.

You’ll feel lighter. More grounded. More awake.

And maybe, like me, you’ll realize the breath didn’t just change how you feel. It changed everything.

“To breathe consciously is to live consciously. Everything begins with awareness.”

Explore the Pneuma Yoga Method and begin your breath journey today. Weekly practices, guided meditations, and somatic breath education at pneuma-yoga.com.

The Red Light Reflex – How Stress Locks the Body and Breath (and How to Undo It)

Have you ever noticed how your body responds when something startles or overwhelms you?

Your shoulders rise. Your chest caves. Your breath becomes shallow. Your head juts forward as your spine curves inward.

This isn’t just “bad posture”—it’s your nervous system doing its job. It’s a primal reflex. A protective response. And it’s deeply wired into our biology.

In Somatics, Thomas Hanna called this the Red Light Reflex—a full-body contraction triggered by fear, anxiety, or trauma. Over time, if it’s never released, it becomes a chronic postural pattern that compresses our breath, digestion, and emotional state.

In this blog, we’ll explore:

• What the Red Light Reflex is

• How it affects your health

• Why it leads to chronic pain and dysfunction

• And most importantly, how to unwind it through the Pneuma Yoga Method

What Is the Red Light Reflex?

The Red Light Reflex is a neuromuscular defense pattern triggered when we feel startled, ashamed, anxious, or under threat. It’s the body’s way of curling inward to protect the vital organs and minimize exposure.

This reflex is unconscious and automatic. But when activated repeatedly—through chronic stress, trauma, screen time, or shame—it becomes habituated in the sensory-motor system.

Signs of chronic Red Light Reflex include:

• Rounded shoulders

• Forward head posture

• Collapsed chest

• Tension in the jaw, throat, or abdomen

• Shallow breathing

• Digestive issues or fatigue

Left unaddressed, it affects everything from your spine to your mood.

How the Red Light Reflex Impacts Your Health

1. Breathing Becomes Restricted

When the chest collapses and the abdomen tightens, the diaphragm can’t descend properly. The lungs can’t expand. You begin to overuse neck and shoulder muscles for breathing, which leads to tension and poor oxygen exchange.

This contributes to:

• Anxiety and over-breathing

• Poor sleep

• Chronic fatigue

• Poor CO₂ tolerance and vagal tone

2. The Nervous System Stays in Survival Mode

Red Light posture is a somatic signal of threat. Your body feeds the brain information saying “we’re not safe.” Even when the original stress is gone, the shape keeps the system on high alert.

This leads to:

• Hypervigilance

• Emotional reactivity

• Digestive shutdown

• Weakened immune function

3. Pain and Degeneration

A forward-curled spine strains the muscles of the back, neck, and shoulders. The head feels heavier. The ribcage becomes rigid. Over time, this leads to:

• Chronic neck and back pain

• Shoulder impingement

• Shallow rib mobility

• Reduced balance and proprioception

How the Pneuma Yoga Method Unwinds the Reflex

The good news? This pattern can be reversed.

The Pneuma Yoga Method is a somatic-breath integration practice that specifically addresses the Red Light Reflex through:

🌀 Breath Re-Education

• Subtle awareness practices to restore diaphragmatic movement

• Gentle breath holds and light nasal breathing to build CO₂ tolerance

• Techniques drawn from yogic pranayama, Buteyko Method, and Patrick McKeown’s clinical insights

🧠 Somatic Pandiculation

• Awareness-based contractions and releases of the front body

• Targeted sequences for the abdominals, sternum, jaw, and neck

• Movement patterns that rebuild communication between brain and body

🌬️ Nervous System Regulation

• Guided meditations to downshift the stress response

• Visualization and pratyahara to help turn inward

• Body scans that soften inner holding and create parasympathetic dominance

You don’t have to force your body open. You simply need to remind your brain that it’s safe to release.

Want to Try It?

This week, we’re offering multiple ways to experience this for yourself:

🎥 Free YouTube Class: Try our full-length Red Light Reflex class available now on YouTube

🧘‍♂️ Guided Meditation Library: Explore our new meditation page with practices designed to help you soften the red light response, reconnect your breath, and come home to your body.

📘 Pneuma Yoga Method: Join the 10-class therapeutic series launching soon. Week One is entirely focused on Red Light awareness, including daily practices, breath resets, and soma maps.

Final Thoughts

You’re not stuck this way. The way you breathe, sit, walk, and hold yourself—these can change. Your nervous system is plastic. Your posture is a story, not a sentence.

The Red Light Reflex was meant to protect you. But now, you’re safe. And it’s time to move forward with awareness, strength, and freedom.

“Freedom means choice. And choice only exists when we are aware of what we are doing.” – Thomas Hanna

Learn more at pneuma-yoga.com. Your body already knows how to heal. Let’s give it the chance.

What Are Somatics? Understanding the Mind-Body Connection

In our fast-paced world, it's easy to treat the body as a machine—something to stretch, strengthen, or "fix." But deeper healing, mobility, and resilience come not through force, but through awareness.

This is the foundation of Somatics: the practice of reclaiming the mind’s control over the body’s movements, patterns, and posture.

The Birth of Somatics

The term "Somatics" was coined by Thomas Hanna, a philosopher and movement educator, who recognized that chronic pain and tension were not merely physical phenomena. They were patterns held within the sensory-motor system—the link between the brain and the muscles.

In his view, many musculoskeletal issues were not caused by structural problems, but by a loss of voluntary control over muscles. Hanna called this phenomenon Sensory-Motor Amnesia (SMA).

When we experience injuries, stress, or repetitive movements, our nervous system adapts—locking muscles into involuntary patterns of tension. Over time, we "forget" how to fully relax or move naturally. This leads to postural distortion, chronic pain, reduced breathing capacity, and emotional stress.

Somatics, then, is the art of remembering. It is the conscious re-education of the nervous system, teaching the body to release habitual tension and restore natural ease.

Pneuma Yoga Method: Reconnecting Breath, Body, and Mind

The Pneuma Yoga Method is a therapeutic program designed to reconnect the mind and body through somatic principles based on Rick Fulton's education at Yoga North International SomaYoga Institute.

By gaining skillful awareness of the sensations within, we can access and transform more subtle patterns—specifically our breathing.

At its core, the Pneuma Yoga Method is based on the fundamental principle that by becoming a better breather, we reshape our entire internal landscape. Through subtle somatic movements, breath awareness, and nervous system regulation practices, students learn to foster an organic, innate breath that more closely resembles our true natural breathing—light, effortless, and sustaining.

Rather than imposing breath techniques from the outside, Pneuma Yoga retrains breath from the inside out—awakening the soma's capacity to breathe itself back into balance.

Why Somatics Matters for Modern Pain, Breathing, and Stress

• Pain Relief: Chronic muscle contraction, when left unchecked, can compress joints, nerves, and connective tissues. By teaching the muscles to release, many chronic pain conditions resolve naturally.

• Improved Breathing: Locked ribcages, compressed diaphragms, and shallow breathing are often linked to sensory-motor amnesia. Breathwork integrated with somatic movement retrains the respiratory system to operate with greater efficiency and calm.

• Stress Regulation: The nervous system cannot distinguish between physical and emotional tension. Somatic awareness, when combined with breath retraining, shifts the system from "fight or flight" to "rest and digest."

• Mobility and Posture: True mobility isn't about forcing flexibility; it's about freeing the brain's ability to move the body. Somatics restores natural movement pathways.

Somatic Movement vs Traditional Exercise

Unlike traditional exercise or even stretching, somatic movement focuses on internal sensation rather than external achievement. It's slow, mindful, and deeply nourishing.

Where exercise may strengthen muscles already caught in compensation patterns, somatic movement seeks to reset the baseline—allowing true strength and freedom to emerge naturally.

A Return to Wholeness

Somatics invites us to live from the inside out. It reminds us that health isn't achieved by "fixing" the body from the outside—it’s reclaimed by waking up the innate intelligence within.

In the Pneuma Yoga Method, every movement, every breath, and every moment of awareness is a step toward reconnecting with that wholeness.

It is a remembering.

It is a homecoming.

"Soma is not a thing, but a process — the living body as experienced from within." — Thomas Hanna

Want to experience somatic yoga? Try a class here: Somatic yoga for mobility and pain

Stay tuned for our next post: A deeper dive into the incredible senses of proprioception, interoception, and nociception — and how they shape our experience of pain, posture, and breath.

To learn more, explore our upcoming classes in the Pneuma Yoga Method at pneuma-yoga.com.

The Power of Somatics: Reclaiming Your Health with Pneuma Yoga

In a world where chronic pain, stress, and tension have become the norm, it's easy to feel disconnected from your body. Many of us have been taught to push through discomfort, ignore fatigue, or rely on external solutions for relief. But what if the key to healing wasn’t outside of you? What if you had the power to retrain your body and mind, restoring ease and vitality from within?

This is where somatics comes in.

What is Somatics?

Somatics is a practice that focuses on retraining the nervous system and restoring natural movement patterns through awareness and gentle, intentional movement. Unlike traditional exercise that often emphasizes strength and flexibility alone, somatics works directly with your brain and muscles to release habitual tension, improve mobility, and enhance overall well-being.

At its core, somatics is about relearning how to move with ease—not by forcing change, but by inviting the body to let go of unconscious patterns that no longer serve us. These patterns can be the result of past injuries, stress, or simply years of repetitive movement and poor posture. Over time, they become deeply ingrained, leading to discomfort, stiffness, and even chronic pain.

Through slow, mindful movements, somatic practices allow you to feel and understand how your body holds tension, providing an opportunity to release it. This process not only improves physical function but also creates a deep sense of relaxation and self-awareness.

The Sovereignty of Somatics

One of the most profound gifts of somatics is sovereignty—the ability to take control of your own healing and well-being.

Instead of depending on outside interventions to “fix” your body, somatic practices put the power back in your hands. You learn to listen to your body’s signals, respond with mindful movement, and develop an intuitive understanding of what you need to feel balanced and whole. This practice cultivates autonomy, confidence, and long-term resilience.

How Somatics Integrates into the Pneuma Yoga Method

At Pneuma Yoga, I integrate somatic principles with breathwork, meditation, and self-reflection to create a holistic approach to healing. This method is designed to not only relieve pain and tension but also to regulate the nervous system, restore optimal breathing, and develop a deeper connection to your own inner intelligence.

Each step of the Pneuma Yoga Method incorporates:

• Somatic Movement: Targeting specific patterns of tension (such as the Red Light stress response) and re-educating the nervous system.

• Breathwork (Kriya Practices): Techniques that enhance nervous system regulation and promote deep relaxation.

• Meditation & Reflection: Cultivating mental clarity, emotional balance, and self-awareness.

• Yogic Principles (Yamas & Niyamas): Applying ancient wisdom to modern life for a well-rounded path to well-being.

By practicing Pneuma Yoga, you develop a sense of mastery over your health, rather than feeling like a passive participant in your wellness journey.

Why Somatics Matters for Your Well-Being

If you’re experiencing chronic pain, stress, or physical discomfort, somatics can be a life-changing practice. It offers a way to: ✅ Reduce muscle tension and pain ✅ Improve posture and mobility ✅ Increase body awareness and coordination ✅ Regulate the nervous system for better stress resilience ✅ Cultivate a sense of ease and relaxation in daily life

The beauty of somatics is that anyone can do it—regardless of age, fitness level, or experience. The movements are gentle yet powerful, and their effects extend far beyond the mat. This practice teaches you how to move smarter, not harder, leading to profound shifts in both body and mind.

Taking the First Step

Your journey to reclaiming your body and well-being begins with awareness. The first step is simply noticing how you move, breathe, and hold tension throughout your day. As you begin to explore somatics, you’ll uncover a new level of freedom—one that allows you to move, breathe, and live with greater ease.

If you’re ready to make a change, to step into a practice that empowers you, Pneuma Yoga is here to guide you. Through somatic movement, breathwork, and self-awareness, you’ll unlock the potential within you to heal, grow, and thrive.

You don’t have to accept pain and discomfort as your reality. The power to transform is already within you—let’s uncover it together.

Breathwork and Somatic Yoga: A Path to Healing and Resilience

Welcome to the Pneuma Yoga blog! This space is where we’ll dive into the transformative practices of somatic yoga, breathwork, and nervous system healing. Whether you're new to these practices or a seasoned practitioner, this blog is here to inspire, guide, and deepen your understanding of healing and growth.

The Healing Power of Breathwork
Breathwork is a powerful tool to regulate the nervous system and create resilience. Many of us unknowingly hold our breath or breathe shallowly, leading to tension, fatigue, and even anxiety. By practicing light, slow, and deep nasal breathing, we allow the body to relax, detoxify, and optimize oxygen exchange.

• What You Can Expect: In future posts, I’ll guide you through specific techniques like nadi shodhana, humming, and power breathing to help you balance energy, calm the mind, and enhance vitality.

• We will explore the importance of breath, and how this simple act can make a tremendous change to your life experience.

• Here is a link to a Pneuma Yoga breath practice:

What Is Somatic Yoga?
Somatic yoga focuses on mindful, slow movements to release tension, improve mobility, and re-educate the nervous system. Unlike traditional yoga, this practice emphasizes interoception (awareness of internal sensations) to help you reconnect with your body on a deep level.

• Somatic movements are key to undoing patterns and habits that cause pain, tension, poor mobility, inflammation, and a dysregulated nervous system.

• Want to feel the difference of a Pneuma Yoga class! Here is link to a somatic yoga practice.

Why Healing in Community Matters
Healing doesn’t happen in isolation. Joining a supportive community amplifies your ability to thrive. At Pneuma Yoga, we’ve seen people not only heal physically but also experience a renewed sense of belonging and purpose through shared practice. Humas are social creatures, join others who are curious about how to feel more connected to themselves and others!

Yoga Philosophy: Living with Purpose and Clarity

• The Koshas: Learn how the five layers of being—body, breath, mind, wisdom, and bliss—work together to create balance and harmony.

• The Kleshas: Learn the five causes of suffering and how we can observe them influencing our life without us even noticing.

• The Yamas & Niyamas: Explore these ethical principles and how they offer guidance for living with integrity, mindfulness, and compassion.

Ayurveda: A Blueprint for Holistic Health

• Understanding the Doshas: Discover how your unique constitution (Vata, Pitta, or Kapha) influences your health, emotions, and energy.

• Understand Ancient Nutritional Wisdom: How to nourish all your tissues and grow a healthy and thriving body & mind by nourishing all your senses and tastes.

• Daily Practices (Dinacharya): Learn simple cleansing and self-care rituals like tongue scraping, oil pulling, and seasonal eating to restore balance.

Personal Story
As someone who has faced significant challenges, including my journey through two devastating battles with cancer and a horrific motorcycle accident. These experiences had a profound effect on my health and my life took a turn for the worst, I suffered my body and my mind for twenty years, struggling to find ways to cope. My days were filled with severe pain, extreme digestive issues, depression, addiction and I had a constant feeling of being lost in life.

I found soma yoga and breathwork at the age of 39 and my life has been in a state of renewal ever since, these practices were truly life-changing. Breathwork and somatic yoga gave me tools to not only heal but thrive. My goal is to share these tools with you, so you can live with greater ease and resilience.

Continueing from here
I am excited to share with you all the practical tips that I have learned throughout my training and in my hunger for continued education and practice. Yoga is my passion and I will continue to practice and grow so that I can share deeper insights to enhance your journey. I look forward to growing together.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts where we’ll break down techniques, share stories of transformation, and provide practical tools to support your journey. Want more? Subscribe to the blog for updates and exclusive content, or join me in person for one-on-one therapy, classes and workshops.

How to Reset your Nervous System

5 Minute Nervous System Reset.

🌿 How to create a calm and relaxed body, breath and mind.

1. Standing Shake (Spondana):
Begin by standing tall and gently shaking out your limbs. This simple movement helps release stagnant energy, awakening your body's innate rhythm.​

2. Somatic Shoulder Release:
Seated comfortably, elevate and release your shoulders with mindful awareness. This movement dissolves built-up tension, especially from prolonged sitting or stress.​

3. Halo Breathing:
Drawing a small circle with your nose, synchronize this motion with your breath. This technique slows respiration, calming the mind and soothing the nervous system.​

4. Somatic Arch and Flatten (Supine):
Lying on your back, gently arch and flatten your lower spine. This movement nurtures spinal flexibility and fosters a sense of grounding.​

5. Somatic Twist:
With knees bent, allow them to drift to one side until the pelvis begins to rotate, turning your head in the opposite direction. This gentle twist massages the spine and encourages detoxification.​

Visual Tip: Include high-quality images or short GIFs demonstrating each movement. Tools like Canva offer customizable yoga templates to create visually appealing graphics.

🌿 The Practice: A Journey Inward

Each movement in this sequence invites the body to soften and the mind to come home. Spondana, or shaking, isn't just a release—it resets the nervous system by loosening muscle holding patterns and inviting lymphatic flow. The shoulder release invites awareness to the places we carry stress without even noticing. Halo breathing is a subtle but powerful doorway to inner stillness, training the breath to flow evenly and lightly. Arch and flatten reconnects the brain with the spine, establishing a safe rhythm through the centerline. Finally, the twist gently wrings out tension while encouraging the spine and breath to harmonize.

🧠 Why It Works: The Science Behind the Serenity

When we engage the body in slow, mindful movement, we activate sensory pathways that speak directly to the brainstem and limbic system—where our emotional and physiological states are regulated. Practices like these gently interrupt the stress loop and bring us into the parasympathetic “rest and digest” state. This reset is especially important for people living with chronic tension or emotional overwhelm. Repetitive, conscious motion paired with breath builds new neurological pathways—meaning, with practice, your body begins to remember calm more easily.

🌌 Turning Inward: The Path to Sovereignty

In somatic yoga, we often say that "awareness is the movement." As we turn our attention away from the noise of the world and toward the quiet rhythm of our breath or the subtle sensation of a shoulder softening, we reclaim space. This is the foundation of pratyahara—the yogic sense of withdrawal—not as avoidance, but as agency. When we practice tuning into our inner world, we learn to pause before reacting, to breathe before bracing, to choose curiosity over contraction. Sovereignty comes from this space: the moment where presence replaces programming.

🌟 Embrace the Practice

This five-minute sequence isn’t just a technique—it’s a declaration. A declaration that your peace is worth cultivating, even in small doses. The more often you return to these movements, the more fluent your body becomes in the language of calm. And each repetition becomes a seed planted—toward resilience, toward presence, toward a life less driven by stress and more guided by awareness. Let this be your moment to pause, breathe, and begin again.

Try the 5 Minute Nervous System Reset:

Pandiculation – Nature’s Reset for Tension, Stress, and Mobility

Have you ever seen a cat stretch after a nap—arching its back, yawning wide, and slowly releasing? That’s not just a stretch. It’s a built-in neurological function called pandiculation—a spontaneous, brain-driven reset for muscle tone, tension, and sensory awareness.

Humans do it too. That luxurious morning yawn-and-reach? That’s your nervous system checking in with your body. But over time, through stress, repetition, and disconnection, many of us forget how to access this simple tool.

In somatic therapy, pandiculation becomes a conscious practice to restore lost movement, relieve chronic tension, and rewire the brain-body connection. It’s the heart of the Pneuma Yoga Method—and it may be the missing piece in your healing journey.

What Is Pandiculation?

Pandiculation is the process of:

1. Slowly contracting a muscle or movement pathway (often exaggerated or resisted)

2. Holding briefly at peak contraction with awareness

3. Slowly and consciously releasing back to rest

This active reset involves both the sensory (feeling) and motor (movement) systems in tandem. Unlike passive stretching or massage, pandiculation teaches the brain to let go of chronic tension through voluntary movement and awareness.

Thomas Hanna, founder of Clinical Somatics, referred to this as the primary tool for overcoming Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA)—the root cause of most chronic muscular pain.

"Pandiculation contracts the muscles so the brain can feel them more vividly, and then lets go of the contraction to show the brain how to relax them."

Why Stretching Doesn’t Work (and May Even Reinforce Patterns)

Traditional stretching tries to lengthen muscles from the outside. It assumes the problem is tight tissue. But in somatics, we understand that chronic tension is often a result of the brain involuntarily keeping muscles contracted.

Stretching doesn’t address this.

• It can create rebound tension

• It may bypass the brain’s control system

• It often activates reflexive guarding

Pandiculation, on the other hand, speaks directly to the nervous system. It resets baseline muscle tone by re-educating the brain—and the results are more immediate and lasting.

How Pandiculation Affects the Nervous System

When done with awareness, pandiculation regulates the autonomic nervous system by activating the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) state.

It improves:

• Vagal tone

• Heart rate variability (HRV)

• Respiratory sinus arrhythmia

• Neuromuscular coordination

It also increases interoception—our sense of internal awareness—which helps us notice and respond to tension before it becomes pain.

In a very real sense, pandiculation teaches us to feel ourselves again.

Pandiculation in the Pneuma Yoga Method

In the Pneuma Yoga Method, pandiculation is the foundation of movement. Each practice begins with breath awareness and slow, subtle motion designed to:

• Activate specific muscle chains

• Bring attention to unconscious holding patterns

• Reset tension through deliberate contraction and release

Combined with breath retraining, this helps release:

• Red Light Reflex patterns (chest collapse, forward head)

• Green Light Reflex patterns (over-extension, over-efforting)

• Cringe Reflex patterns (rotational asymmetries from trauma or injury)

We don’t stretch to lengthen. We move to awaken.

How to Try It

Here’s a simple exercise to feel the power of pandiculation:

Arch & Curl

1. Lie on your back with your knees bent, soles of feet on floor.

2. Gently arch your lumbar spine and tilt the pelvis forward, tapping tailbone to the floor. Hold gently without force and notice the shape.

3. Slowly relax and watch the spine return to its natural shape. Take 10-15 seconds to release.

4. Go the other direction. Draw the naval stright down and tilt the pelvis back, flattening out the spine and scooping tailbone up, hold and notice, release and follow slowly.

5. Rest. Notice your breath, spine, and sense of internal balance.

Repeat 3-5 times each side then back and forth.

Notice: you’re not just "exercising" — you’re retraining the brain to feel and move with precision and ease.

Why This Matters for Pain, Stress, and Mobility

Pandiculation is especially effective for:

• Chronic lower back pain

• Neck and shoulder tension

• TMJ and jaw tension

• Breathing dysfunction

• Stress-related postural issues

By addressing the root neurological pattern, we don’t just treat symptoms—we retrain the entire system.

And it’s accessible. Anyone can do it. No equipment, no forcing, no memorization. Just your body, your breath, and your awareness.

The Somatic Way Forward

In modern health and fitness, we're told to push, force, or stretch harder. But the somatic path offers something gentler—and ultimately more powerful:

A way to listen to the body, reset the nervous system, and allow healing to emerge organically.

At Pneuma Yoga, we teach this through classes, meditations, and embodied practices that start with awareness and return us to wholeness.

"The body is not a dumb animal to be trained. It is a field of intelligence waiting to be awakened." — adapted from Thomas Hanna

Explore the Pneuma Yoga Method to learn more. Next week, we dive into the Red Light Reflex: How chest collapse, forward head, and shallow breath are symptoms of a nervous system caught in survival—and how to gently unwind it.

[Join me at pneuma-yoga.com for classes, guidance, and breath-led healing.]