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Do you have an inner voice that shapes how you see yourself and the world?

Does it whisper words such as I am too much – I am not enough – I am unsafe – I am hard to love?

Have you ever questioned the validity of these thoughts, or do they shape the reality of your everyday?

What if I was to tell you that these thoughts are not fact?

These are core beliefs – deep beliefs that we hold about ourselves, other people and the world. They are identity level, but they were formed when you were in survival mode.

During a formative time in your life, your nervous system tried to make sense of the world when safety felt out of reach.

The beliefs were the conclusion you came to in order to keep yourself safe.

Core beliefs are state-dependent conclusions, formed when your nervous system was in a survival state, in a moment when your thinking brain went offline.

A survival state, framed in polyvagal terms, is when our nervous system shifts out of a Ventral State ( when we feel calm, safe, connected) into one of two Sympathetic States.

These sympathetic states include activation, such as fight or flight or Dorsal shut down, such as freeze, collapse and exhaustion. This includes adaptive behaviours such as fawning, or people pleasing; prioritising other people’s needs in order to stay safe or gain affection.

In a survival state, your brain made a split-second conclusion about the world and your place in it.

Core beliefs do not form when you are in a state of ventral safety. When you are feeling regulated (in a ventral state), your pre-frontal cortex is online; you can think about situations clearly and objectively.

Core beliefs form when your system feels overwhelmed, through traumatic experiences. A traumatic experience can be a one-off distressing event that overwhelmed your capacity to cope, or an ongoing period of feeling unsafe or in a stressful situation.

When you have left a ventral state and have entered survival mode, your system becomes activated and scans for threat. Your belief might be “I am not safe, something bad always happens”, or “I have to be perfect or I will be rejected”.

If you go into a dorsal state (collapse, numbness, shutdown), your belief might be “I am always alone” or “I can’t cope”.

In a freeze state the belief might be “I am trapped, I am powerless”.

In a fawn state, the belief might be “I am only loveable when I am helping others”, or “my needs don’t matter”.

The survival state that you were in when the trauma happened shaped the core beliefs that formed. Perhaps a moment of loss, and period of abuse, an experience of deep shame. Your ‘thinking brain’ (pre-frontal cortex) goes off-line and your limbic system (part of your nervous system) comes to a conclusion to try to make sense of what is happening.

That conclusion becomes a core belief encoded in that survival state.

These core beliefs stay active because your body holds on to that survival state.

These beliefs often form before the age of 6, before the pre-frontal cortex is developed. We form conclusions about ourself and the world without a logical filter. We simply absorb what is happening and form beliefs based on how our nervous system interprets those experiences. If you are neglected, your system concludes “I don’t matter”. If you experience criticism, you decide “I am not good enough”. If love is inconsistent, you might conclude that “love is conditional”.

As we grow, core beliefs might change shape, but the root stays the same. A sense that the world is unpredictable and unsafe might develop into hypervigilence.

Core beliefs are stored as implicit memory, linked to the nervous system state that they were formed in-they are not conscious thought. When we are in a ventral state and able to be more objective about the world, we might be able to see that these beliefs are not true, we can more easily challenge and reframe them.

These beliefs are stored in our nervous system as automatic state-responses. So, we can feel calm and regulated and know that we are indeed enough; but if something trips us into a survival state, suddenly the core belief such as “I am not enough”, I can’t cope”, “the world is not safe” starts to feel true and powerful again, because these beliefs are encoded in an activated or dorsal state.

This is a polyvagal understanding of core beliefs.

When we are in ventral, the belief might be quiet. We might even be able to observe it and question it. But when we are activated, the brief seems loud and factual.

The belief matches the survival state. The state matches the belief. This can keep us stuck.

When we understand that these beliefs were formed in a survival state, we are able to show ourselves more compassion.

Because core beliefs are nervous system states, no positive thinking or affirmations are going to help.

By working with the nervous system, we are able to challenge and re-wire core beliefs.

If we understand the cycle when core beliefs show up, we can begin to challenge them. Firstly, something takes us out of a ventral (relaxed) state into a survival state (such as activation/fight or flight, or dorsal shutdown, collapse).

Your brain generates a story that matches the state and we believe that it is true because it feels true in our body. We behave in a way that matches that state (such as people pleasing, telling ourself we are unloveable). This reinforces the original belief and we then stay stuck in the survival mode.

Unless we can experience moments of ventral safety, the belief will not soften.

When we are in ventral; feeling safe, grounded and connected, we can begin to objectively challenge the core belief.

Therefore, by building our capacity to access and stay in a ventral state, even when old triggers arise, we can teach our body how to return to a sense of safety. For example, grounding, orienting, resourcing, co-regulation, somatic practices such as EFT tapping etc., all strengthen ventral tone.

These practices show your nervous system that it can return to safely.

If you can touch on a core belief when anchored in a ventral state, you can observe it rather than be consumed by it. You could begin to feel the belief; notice where it lives in your body and stay regulated enough to offer yourself safety and compassion. From here, you are teaching your body – this belief does not need to control me.

As you build ‘ventral capacity’ – safety – you can begin to offer credible updates. For example “part of me feels not enough, but I am worthy just as I am”. Or, “in this moment, I am safe enough” rather than “the world is unsafe”.

These updates are offered from a regulated state, in a way that your nervous system can receive them.

Repatterining core beliefs happens in moments of safety. Repeating these moments day after day allows your nervous system time to integrate. They are cumulative. Change does not happen all at once.

Core beliefs do not change over night. They were formed over time, often reinforced over years or decades. They change gradually as your nervous system experiences new sensations of safety. This is not linear; our nervous system will look for confirmation of old patterns. But over time, new experiences become possible and we find flexibility in our responses.

Our core beliefs helped to protect us and keep us safe, but they do not need to define us for the rest of our life.

If we can learn that safety is possible, the core beliefs that were formed in a survival state begin to fade.

Talking therapy is incredibly helpful for understanding ourselves and making sense of our experiences. But sometimes we can leave the therapy room feeling better – having new insights and clarity – only to step straight into the same patterns; feeling bad about ourself, feeling stressed or exhausted, feeling anxious or worried or stuck in reactive and repetitive behaviours.

This can be because so many therapeutic interventions completely overlook the body.

In Somatic Therapy, Thomas Hanna explores the concept of the ‘soma’. Not a mind and a body, but a whole person, perceived from within; a living being with an internal experience, where the mind and body are continuously connected through the nervous system.

Sitting within our nervous system is our neuromuscular system, which enables voluntary and involuntary movements by relaying electrical signals from the central nervous system to muscle fibres.

Our nervous system continuously scans our environment for cues of safety or danger, beneath our conscious awareness. It scans and decides; do I need protection or am I safe?

When something registers as ‘off’, the amygdala (the ‘smoke detector’ of the brain) fires and sends our whole system into protection mode. This overrides our conscious brain and narrows our access to logical thought, choice and decision making.

This is our sympathetic nervous system getting activated, and when this happens, we have mobilised, anxious, urgent energy, our breathing can become shallow, and, crucially, our muscles become tense, ready for action; fight or flight.

Our nervous system is designed for this; it has kept us safe in the moment.

However, over time, through adverse experiences, repetitive stress and trauma, we can get stuck in this sympathetic response, our nervous system loses flexibility to return to a parasympathetic (relaxed) state and our muscles can become chronically tight, contracted and stuck in survival mode. This is often outside of our conscious awareness.

These patterns, or survival responses, show up as holding patterns in our body; a hunched back and a tight neck as if we are protecting ourselves and looking for threats, a tight back as if we are preparing to defend ourselves or fight, a twisted torso as if we are ready to flee.

Our stress is reflected in these embodied patterns.

The brain receives messages from the body. But if the body is trapped in protective holding patterns, the brain signals back to the nervous system that there is a threat. And we get stuck in a doom loop of stress and muscle contraction.

If our body is in constant survival mode, our mind (being part of our soma; our whole being) receives messages that “we are not safe”.

These messages shape our thoughts and the stories we tell ourselves. They form core beliefs. We can begin to see ourself as anxious or negative or reactive. We start to tell ourselves “I cannot cope” or “I am broken”. They sit beneath the noise of everyday thought and they shape what you expect, what you notice and how you respond to the world.

From a polyvagal perspective (based on the work of Stephen Porges), core beliefs do not form when we feel safe, protected and connected (the ventral state); they form when we are in survival mode.

Some common stories;

In sympathetic: I am not safe, I have to be perfect

In dorsal (shutdown): I do not matter, there is no point

In freeze or fawn: my needs do not matter, I am only of value when I’m helping others

The story seems true, but it is coming from our physiology, not our personality.

This all occurs outside of our conscious awareness and over time we can forget how to live – and move – with ease. Thomas Hanna referred to this as Sensory Motor Amnesia; when the brain forgets how to relax certain muscle groups and therefore we get stuck in embodied stress patterns.

Somatic experiencing involves identifying the holding patterns that we have developed over time and forming new neural pathways. Through sensing and focusing, exploring the “felt sense” on the edge of our awareness, we can begin to become more aware of where we hold tightness and tension.

Pandiculation; the experience of sensing and moving gradually into these patterns of tightness in order to consciously release out of them, enables us to re-introduce voluntary movement and therefore control over our neuromuscular system.

Over time, with patience and small manageable steps (titration), our soma can integrate new possibilities.

The sense of being “stuck” in a particular nervous system state will shift; we can move between them more fluidly.

…And with a new state becomes a new story.

From January 2026 I will be hosting a weekly Somatic Yoga for Stress class on Wednesday at 6pm at Revitalise in Hove.

Soma means “living body” and somatic yoga is a process of slowing down and tuning in to your sensory experience, noticing habitual holding patterns, breath awareness, subtle sensations and muscular tension.

The movements are gentle and intuitive, listening within and exploring where we could invite softness and release. The practice is a combination of rocking, rolling, shaking, stretching and mobilising, with a sense of curiosity and inner exploration rather than comparison or striving.

It is a beautifully relaxing and restorative form of yoga.

You can book directly via Revitalise

From 20th August 2025 I will be hosting a Yin class at 7.15pm at Revitalise in Hove.

To find out more and book you place online, visit their website here!

What is Yin Yoga and how is it different from other styles?

Yoga, as we understand it in the West, has roots in Eastern philosophy and is broadly perceived as a means through which body, breath and mind can be unified. Over time, it has been shaped into a form of exercise that is mostly practised to stretch, mobilise and strengthen the body. There are aspects of modern yoga that support the stilling of the mind and focusing of the breath and the present moment, but it has become predominantly a muscular and active process, with asansas, vinyasas and sequences to build heat, flexibility and fitness, which can be described as ‘yang” in nature.

Yin yoga, alternatively, focuses on the tissues of our ligaments, joints and fascial networks; it involves “yielding, allowing and nourishing” (Clark, 2019).  It has its roots in Ancient Chinese Daoism; the philosophy that harmony and health are generated when opposite qualities are in balance. Everything in nature is perceived as having both yin and yang qualities – light and dark – all mountains have a shady and a sunny side.  Yin and Yang are understood as contrasting qualities that cannot exist without each other, as they complement and support the other; there is no sunny side without a contrasting shady side.

Yin qualities are depicted as denser, heavier, cooler, darker, slower, more surrendering.  Yang is described as lighter, hotter, brighter, active. 

Although yoga in the 19^th and 20^th centuries favoured yang style, muscular, practice, long held poses could be commonplace, although typically there was no specification as to how long to hold a pose for. It was not until 1966 that B.K.S. Iyengar specified that a pose be held for 1- to 15 minutes, without using the word ‘yin’ to understand this. Longer held poses were also used in gymnastics, athletics and martial arts.

After attending a Taoist Yoga class taught by Paulie Zink, in the 1990s Paul Grilley became the first person to host a yoga class entirely devoted to Yin, with meditation, specific yin poses, counterposes and contraindications, which focused on holding poses for a longer period of time to reach the deeper tissues such as tendons, ligaments and other connective body tissue.

Toaists practiced a form of yoga as a way to ‘live forever’ in their earthly bodies, by effectively transforming their mortal bodies into a perfect body in an alchemic way. A way to do this was to preserve energies, such as the Jing (ancestral energy), Vital energy (chi) and Spirit energy (shen) and even rebuild their original energy stores to gain longevity. Alchemical Daoism focused both on the stimulation and balancing of energies; the yin and yang aspects. To do this, blockages to the flow of energy in the subtle body need to be cleared and the mind uncluttered.

Within Yin, sequences of certain poses can stimulate these energy channels, or meridians, which relate to the five elemental energies in Traditional Chinese Medicine.  This, combined with conscious breathing, paying close attention to sensations, and adopting a functional approach such as considering a “targeted area” such as a fascial group, internal organs, or regions, to promote good health came to be understood as yin yoga practice. Grilley explored and spread the value of a dedicated Yin practice threaded within the roots of Ancient Daoism, creating sequences with aims similar to that of acupuncturists.

It was one of Grilley’s students, Sarah Powers who extended our understanding of yin to include three Tattvas or principals; to come into the pose at an appropriate depth, to remain still and to hold the pose for some time.  Yin classes can now be accessed in most studios.

Personally, I came to yin yoga quite accidentally through a friend’s yoga class.  Having practiced mainly Hatha yoga for almost 20 years, I was quite accustomed to the Yang experience; flows, asanas and closing savasana. Although I valued the opportunity to come into my body and focus on linking my breath with movement, I did see it as primarily a form of exercise.

I began to practice my own yin at home during lockdown, and I found the three Tattvas became really central in my experience. Having experienced back pain and stiffness for most of my adult life, I would perceive almost any sensation as something to avoid.  However, during my practice, I began to explore the concept of the ’edge’. I tried to understand sensation as a feeling or a response, and not immediately as something to back away from. Almost being alongside this as I would a felt sense in my stomach or chest, I began to understand the ‘edge’ as an invitation to become familiar with my body, almost enquire into what it was telling me, and perhaps even accept the offer of release or the invitation to go deeper.

The second Tattva; to remain still also helped me to tune inward and settle my mind. Rather than my more common experience of transitioning from pose to pose without really sensing any subtleties in my body, the practice of simply ‘being’ in a pose felt like a meditation. When I began to explore specific yin poses and start to understand about fascia and connective tissues, I began to imagine yin as a way to tap into the body’s own healing capabilities.

The idea of holding poses for some time also seemed counter to all of my previous experience of yoga, and perhaps, of all of the Tattvas, explains a draw to Yin in more recent times.  The idea of consciously giving something time in a time-deprived culture seems quite revolutionary, and it feels as if I am gifting myself something by doing this; the sacred pause, doing but not doing, time space to journey inward when so much around us is designed to draw us back out again. 

After its long history I can understand the increasing appeal of yin yoga towards the end of the 20^th century and its place in timetables alongside yang practices. As Daoists believed, yin and yang need each other and are intrinsically weaved together.  But perhaps, in this fast world of ours, we need to make time for a little more yin to have a chance to restore some harmony, because, to heal the world, we need to start with ourselves.

I look forward to seeing you in class soon!

Suzanne x

From 3rd July 2025 I will be teaching trauma sensitive yoga at the Brighton Unitarian Church.

Survivors Network is a Sussex charity that supports survivors of sexual violence and abuse.

Trauma can show up in people’s bodies in so many ways, including numbing, stiffness, chronic pain, fatigue, restlessness, dissociation, hyper-vigilance or a feeling of being in stuck fight or flight mode.

Trauma sensitive yoga can help to support us to reconnect with our bodies and foster a sense of safety and trust in ourselves. It can help to ground us in the present moment and promote a sense of choice and control. It can help to regulate the nervous system and encourage self-compassion.

These classes will include gentle grounding exercises and some somatic techniques such as tapping, rocking, shaking and releasing movements. We will also explore some standing, strengthening, postures and flows which can feel empowering and activating.

Everything is an invitation and how much you do is up to you. I will always encourage people to choose where to put their mat, take breaks when they need to, make the right choices for their own body and support a sense of control and autonomy.

To find out more or book onto a class, please visit Survivors Network

There is lots of talk about nervous system regulation in both the counselling and yoga world and it can be useful to consider the link between the nervous system and trauma when we are trying to understand ourselves and our emotional or physical reactions to things.

But where to start?

A good place to begin is by understanding the vagus nerve, which is increasingly being mentioned as a profound tool for helping with anxiety and creating a mindful connection with our body.

But what is it?

The vagus nerve (sometimes called “the wanderer”) runs the entire length of the torso from the brain into the facial muscles, throat, heart, lungs and stomach. It governs the two parts of our parasympathetic nervous system.

Our parasympathetic nervous system has two branches – the first to evolve was the dorsal vagal circuit, which protected us from dangerous and life-threatening situations by shutting down the body; a variation of which is when we feel numb or paralysed with fear, or dissociate in response to overwhelming situations. In this way, our bodies can override all other systems to survive, and although some survivors of trauma might feel disappointment or shame in not fighting back, this response may well have been life saving.

The second part of the parasympathetic nervous system to evolve was the ventral vagal circuit which is a uniquely mammalian trait that helps us feel safe though our connection with others.

We also have a sympathetic nervous system, which activates the body’s fight or flight response.

The vagus nerve governs both parts of the parasympathetic nervous system and works to inhibit the fight or flight response of the sympathetic nervous system. It either causes the body to shut down, or it facilitates social engagement. It takes its cues from what is happening inside our body (our feelings) as well as outside (the environment) to determine how safe we feel – and our nervous system is constantly scanning for threats outside of our awareness.

We can learn to influence the emotional state we are in by understanding and ‘toning’ our vagus nerve, using different practices to have different effects on our nervous system. Paying attention to our breath is the most immediate way to do this because we can change our physiological state through breathing, which our nervous system responds to. If our breathing is fast and shallow, we can engage our sympathetic nervous system and our fight or flight response kicks in. If we breathe slowly and calmly, our brain responds to the physical cues that we are safe and relaxed and our parasympathetic nervous system responds. A toned vagus nerve will identify slow breath as calming and relaxing rather than engaging the dorsal circuit, or a numb/dissociated, response.

For people with a history of trauma or PTSD, the body may sense danger in the present moment when in fact the nervous system is stuck in past reactivity. The body may sense the slightest danger as life threatening and mobilise the defensive actions of the sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight) to perceived threats, or shut down completely if it feels overwhelmed (a dorsal vagal response). The body can be stuck in the past long after the threat has gone.

Both of these reactions happen outside of conscious awareness; it can feel as if our nervous system has hijacked our body.

But gentle movement and breathing can help with this; beginning with merely softening the muscles of the face and breathing fully and comfortably. These motions trigger a felt sense of safety because they activate a ‘ventral brake’, or engage the ventral part of our nervous system, which can slow the heart rate and hinder the activation of the sympathetic nervous system.

Regularly checking in with your breath and noticing specific parts of our body where we hold tension when we are not in an immobilised or triggered state can help to familiarize ourselves with grounding practices and tone our vagus nerve ahead of time. That way, we can learn to recognise the early warning signs in our ‘alarm system’ and notice potential triggers so that we can manage them in the moment.

Recognising what we feel and why we feel that way gives us the ability to regulate our emotions and control our lives. If we have conscious awareness of our physical and emotional state, we can choose to respond differently rather than reacting habitually. We might notice our feelings, such as shallow breathing and sweaty palms, without feeling like we have lost control.

Slow, conscious movement can gently shift our physiology and help to build body awareness giving us space and time to process sensations and emotions so that we can respond rather than react.

Some of these are quite somatic, such as:

Swaying; stand with your hands at your sides and shift the weight of your body from one foot to the other. Notice the slow movement as your come to balance in your midline. Allow your attention to shift consciously to your breathing, slowly inhaling through your nose and elongating your exhale to the rhythm of your movement.

Rocking; either use a rocking chair or gently sway while you are standing up by rocking on your feet from toes to heel. Notice the sensation of almost coming ‘off-balance’ and drawing yourself back.

Swinging; Standing with your feet shoulder-distance apart, let your arms be loose by your side and rotate your torso from left to right and let your arms move with the momentum. Let your hands tap the sides of your body as you do this.

Shaking; from standing, let your arms and fingers be loose, gently shake your hands, lift and drop your shoulders, pulsate from your knees, wiggle your ankles, loosen the muscles in your face by mobilising your jaw and purse your lips, taps the heels of your feet on the floor; any movement that promotes softening and releasing.

Conscious presence can also involve restorative yoga poses, such as child’s pose (a forward fold with your buttocks resting on your heels and your head on a cushion or your hands). Or savasana (lying prone on the floor) which can allow us to focus on slowing the breath and induce a relaxed state. These poses can help to ground us and notice the points of contact between our bodies and the floor, bringing us into the present moment; the here and now.

Other methods can involve breathing techniques, such as

Square breathing; linking the four parts of the breath (inhale, pause, exhale, pause) with the four sides of a square.

Ratio breathing; inhaling for a specified number of seconds, pausing, and exhaling for a number of seconds. A simple ration to begin with is 3:2:4. A longer exhale stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system.

Sighing breath; Sighing and shrugging are both signs that the body is dissipating energy; that it is safe and it can move on. Exaggerate your shrug with arm movement can feel really good.

By choosing how to move our body and learning that we can control our breath, we realise that we have choice and agency over our lives. The body and breath are always in the present, unlike our time-travelling mind. Noticing, or being aware of, our bodies in the present moment is a skill we can cultivate and nurture until it becomes second nature. It can be our superpower!

In the months between signing up to train as a yoga teacher and the start of the course I was filled with self-doubt. Flicking through manuals and building up my practical experience in online and face to face classes, I started to question what I was thinking. As a 40 something who slipped a disc at the age of 17 and has suffered recurring sciatica and lower back pain since, my movement felt limited, I considered myself stiff and inflexible, unable to contort my body into particular positions and certainly not a typical yoga teacher.

Yet, having developed my own practice during lockdown, stretching by myself in candlelight as a way to focus my anxiety away from the uncertainty of the time, I had developed an appreciation of yoga as a way to simply be with myself. With a ‘monkey mind’ rendering me unable to sit still for long enough to mediate, I found yoga a moving meditation that invited me to journey inwards and notice sensations as they arose and actually begin to observe, and be with, myself in the present moment.

It was this very understated experience of yoga that continued to call me back when I had doubts and which led me to take the plunge and turn up on the first day of training. Noticing my -very human- tendency to compare myself to the other students, I needed to keep reminding myself that yoga can be an opportunity for a deeply personal encounter with yourself, far departed from throwing particular shapes on the mat.

As I began to delve into the history of yoga, I began to see some overlaps between the theory of yoga and the person-centred approach to counselling, which I am trained in. “Yoga” in Sanskrit roughly translates to ‘yoke’; to bind or unite. It is a reintegration of our head with our heart, our body with our mind; also the experience the joy of this union.  When our head and our heart are pulled in two directions, our ‘self’ is divided between fear and compassion, which leads to a ‘disharmony of spirit’. 

Developed by Carl Rogers in the 1940s, person-centred counselling centres around the client’s experience of themselves, not the therapist as the ‘expert’. He postulated that each individual has an ‘actualising tendency’ to grow and reach their full potential and live in accordance with their true nature, but life experiences, such as the ‘conditions of worth’ – or the beliefs people have about what they need to do, or who they need to be, in order to gain acceptance – mean that they become distanced from their true self.

In person centred therapy, the client is offered conditions of acceptance, empathy and unconditional positive regard so, at their own pace, they can begin to enquire within. With time, these conditions, within the context of a therapeutic relationship, might assist a person to refamiliarise with their ‘true self’, their organismic self or inner being. In this context, a person might be able to reach their full potential – their true potential – a term Rogers called ‘self-realisation’.

Rogers’ most quoted expression is arguably; “the curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change”.

In yogic philosophy, the first sacred texts of Hinduism depicted a universe that is interconnected by a single principle called brahman.  The main teaching is that brahman exists in the unchanging core – the atman – of the individual.  Traditionally, yoga was a path to re-unite with atman; our essence.

Yoga, like counselling, can be an enquiry within and a path towards self-acceptance. Far from twisting, pulling, forcing or heaving my body into shapes it doesn’t make, simply listening to what it is saying can help me understand myself in ways I never did. And only when I can be with, rather than resist, a sensation could I notice a very gentle shift, and even perhaps an unlocking, an unravelling or new space, strength and possibility begin to reveal itself.

Both yoga and person-centred counselling can be seen to be centred around a relationship; the relationship with your inner, or true self, which has been there all along. Personally, yoga means coming home, returning, or uniting with my ‘self’; under the layers of ego, adaptations or self-concept, accessing a universal peace and stillness within that is ever present, but often muffled under a lot of noise.

…And I’m very glad I drowned out the noise and finished the training!