Jake White Healing LLC

07/28/2026

I recently had a great example of using tracking to support my nervous system. Something happened, and I felt extremely disappointed. I had plans to do something I was excited about, but my plans changed.

I immediately turned to my practice of tracking. I felt my head drop, a flush through my neck and face, and sadness in my eyes. As I tracked this pattern in my nervous system, I also began to feel my legs connecting with the floor, my slow and steady heart rate, and a steady awareness as I held my body’s sensations.

Tracking in this moment helped me feel the pain and sadness, as well as notice other parts of my body that felt less reactive. Having both experiences together helped me stay present with my feelings of disappointment.

As I continued to track, I felt myself becoming more accepting of the situation and less overwhelmed and exposed.

In Somatic Experiencing, we teach clients how to track their nervous systems and follow their bodies as stress rises and settles—through their own attention and awareness.

Try simply tracking your body next time you get triggered. Take a small amount of time to notice your body’s response and hold your sensations with awareness. Tracking is the main tool I use to regulate my nervous system.

07/22/2026

07/21/2026

In somatic experiencing we let the body or nervous system guide our work. We pay close attention to the movements, gestures, and postures that we often overlook or bypass.

For example a client may look outward when feeling afraid. We may follow this glance outward with a question. Who or what may you be looking for when you feel afraid or anxious? They may indicate needing someone to move closer to them and remain present for them.

We may then notice the sensation that is present when they resource this person. They may notice their fists open or their chest soften.

Instead of staying in a pattern of fear and anxiety the client has found a resource of safety through their own body.

Gestures, movements, and postures are essential in working with the nervous system. Supporting a movement out of fight, flight, and freeze and into the parasympathetic nervous system.

07/16/2026

Notice the parts of you body that mobilizes in relation to conflict. Notice your jaw, fists, arms, and chest. This pattern of clenching could actually be your bodies way of asserting a healthy boundary.

During conflict our attention goes out to the other person and their actions. Instead we can come back to our own aggression and push with our fists. We can say to ourselves I matter.

This will help to create power and agency in the relationship. When we explore the autonomic nervous system we often discover this assertion of belonging and mattering. It’s a natural state of self protection and survival that often is never resourced or acknowledged.

Next time you are in conflict come back to this assertion of mattering and existing in the present moment.

07/15/2026

I like to ask myself what my perception and thoughts are creating within the sensations of my body. For instance when I constantly think negatively about my partner my nervous system may feel alone, threatened, shaky, and unstable.

I may feel hot, tense, urgency, and clenched through my chest and back. It’s possible that uncertainty and threat was a common experience of my past which is recreated through my perceptions.

In these moments I often place my hand on my chest and come back to myself. I will hold my fear and tension with my hands. I don’t demand that I am different or try to fix myself. I work on staying present for my sensations and bodies response.

I think it is helpful to observe the reality that our perception is creating for our nervous system. It’s helpful to slow down, connect, and hold our present experience. Then we can engage with life with a little more safety and security.

07/13/2026

In somatic experiencing we use the response of the body to guide the sessions. We take moments to pause in order to notice how the nervous is reacting. We may then bring attention to these places in the body.

We may then help support the nervous system to regulate through these patterns. For example we may notice how the nervous system eases when we stay with a pattern of tension. We often orient to our surroundings in order to create more space and awareness. We also notice more capacity to feel through the chest and stomach.

The pause keeps us from recreating traumatic stress and helps us understand what brings the nervous system toward regulation. This gives us more agency, control, and develops new patterns that support the parasympathetic nervous system.

The nervous system does not heal through recreating the protective response in relation to past events. We can’t keep reliving the past and expect to heal and repair. Healing happens through learning to pause and learning new tools to regulate the activated energy of the nervous system. This can lead to so much more security and ease through our whole being. Giving old patterns of trauma a place to release, let go, and recover.

07/09/2026

Notice moments of contraction into fight, flight, and freeze and moments of expansion in the parasympathetic. What’s amazing about the nervous system is that the same places where we feel stress and anxiety is also the places where we feel ease, hope, and peace.

It just shows that the parasympathetic is meant to engage to bring the nervous out of states of dysregulation.

See if you can notice the rhythms of expansion and contraction in your nervous system.

07/07/2026

The nervous system repeats the cycles that it was unable to complete in the past. For example I may have been in an environment where I had to be vigilant and alert.

My nervous system will often startle, my eyes widen, and my hands feel really activated and nervous. In a somatic experiencing session we would observe these bodily responses. We would allow the hands to push out and notice the threat through the hands and upper body. We may actually allow the hands to push away from the body as a way that we are bracing for impact or stopping something threatening from coming closer to us.

As we stay with this response we would also be aware of completion of this cycle. Noticing a deeper breath or a softening of the muscles through the face, throat, and chest.

This response pulls the nervous system out of threat and into the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic brings the nervous system farther away from the cycle of trauma that is held in the body. The parasympathetic shows us that the body wants to move away from trauma rather than being trapped in constriction and overwhelm.

Sometimes through the parasympathetic we feel more peaceful, open, alive, and loving. These represent the part of us that is free from trauma and threat.

If you often times feel anxious become more curious about the ways your body moves and responds through stress. These are the fight, flight, and freeze patterns that need to move and complete through your nervous system.

07/03/2026

The heart and chest holds the history of both our loving relationships and the relational wounds of the past. In somatic experiencing we track and follow the energy of the heart.

We follow cycles of rupture as we talk about a past relationship and we notice constriction, weight, and pressure through the chest. The implicit memory may relate to an environment that was unstable, or a parent who was unavailable for our emotional needs. As the nervous system relates to these past events the heart tightens or braces in response to perceived danger.

The nervous system does not want to stay in states of activation and threat. The nervous system wants to move toward settling, opening, and easing into a baseline of regulation. This baseline is often a response to safety, support, love, and validation. This allows the heart to settle, hands relax, breathing becomes more open, and softness moves through the chest.

Through more openness we can now form new relational patterns that are built around safety, curiosity, self expression, and softness. This emotional energy is often the opposite of the environments that caused our trauma and relational wounds.

Being guided to notice the response of the heart, chest, and lungs should be a key part of healing from past traumatic stress.