Befriending the Body: How Symptoms Become Signals of Safety and Change
Your symptoms; the chronic fatigue, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, anxiety, or dysautonomia; aren’t a sign you are broken or damaged, and they are not your fault at all. They’re signals. This is how your brain and nervous system communicate they are perceiving danger; through a protective stress response that sends signals throughout your cells, organs and body - creating widespread symptoms.
This stuck on state of danger response could have been started from a stressful time in adulthood or childhood, an injury, a virus, an environmental exposure, or an emotional stressor; and the brain has not yet learned that it is safe enough to stop protecting you with these signals.
We don’t have to like these sensations (who does?) but when we learn to respond to them differently, they become guides toward a life that’s not only symptom free, but much kinder and more easeful.
Symptoms as Brain Signals
From a neuroscience perspective, chronic symptoms are often not about damage, but about protective prediction. Your brain constantly scans your environment and body, asking, “Am I safe or in danger?” When it predicts threat; based on memory, emotion, or stress; it can trigger protective sensations like pain, fatigue, tension, or anxiety.
These are learned neural patterns. The brain learns patterns through a natural process called neuroplasticity, where what neural pathways are used - strengthen, and the brain changes continually from what pathways we use in our daily lives (most of which we are not conscious of!). Because these pathways are learned, they can be retrained through compassionate guidance.
Healing Through Safety and Connection
Your nervous system finds regulation through safety and connection, not through control, fixing, or over regulation. The key to healing chronic pain and other neuroplastic symptoms is learning to connect with these body signals; to listen, rather than fear or suppress them.
when we respond with curiosity instead of panic…
when we soften instead of brace…
when we stay open and compassionate instead of analysing or catastrophising…
when we see symptoms, flares, and fear as part of recovery (and being human!), not failure, and use them an opportunity to learn how to respond to ourselves in new ways...
We are showing the brain a new pattern. We are changing our brain's threat appraisal. We’re saying: This sensation is safe. I’m okay. And over time, the brain learns that it no longer needs to sound the alarm. We do this gently, bit by bit, without the need to get anything right, so that our approach feels safe to our wise system. Think of it like having a scared kitten or puppy. You want to extend plenty of support without pressure so that they can grow and flourish. The same is true of your healing body.
This practice works with the mind and brain, to influence the body (top-down). Through our brain's innate ability change when we input new experience; called neuroplasticity, we can reshape how the brain interprets sensations and stress.The brain is a prediction machine; always guessing what’s happening next based on the past. By interrupting learned symptom patterns, changing meaning, beliefs, and emotional tone, we teach the brain to predict safety instead of danger and symptoms melt away.
In practice, we guide the brain toward felt safety using:
This helps reset the limbic system to a healthier set point, where symptoms, daily life, new experiences, movement, environmental stimuli; no longer trigger alarm and symptoms.
This is complimented by an easy, evidence-based practice that helps us feel more at home in our bodies longer term. It is called Somatic Tracking, and also known as Pain Reprocessing Therapy. We teach both these practices in Befriend. We find some people naturally enjoy one more than the other, so you have choices and do not have to do both. however both are very easy to integrate into daily life for a couple of minutes in your day. There is no 'right' or 'best' way.
Somatic Tracking/Pain Reprocessing Therapy
Somatic Tracking invites healing from the body (bottom up). We teach people the skill of gently observing sensations through a lens of safety and curiosity, without trying to make them go away. Even if a sensation feels uncomfortable, we remind ourselves:
“This is my body signalling danger that has now passed, not damage or anything to fear.”
As Safety Grows, Symptoms Soften
As the climate of safety improves throughout our mind and body, symptoms often begin to fade. Think of your mind body like a living ecosystem. When tended with kindness and consistency, it becomes more balanced, flexible, and alive. We don’t have to fight, over focus on recovery, or fix anything. We simply learn to participate in our healing in daily life, to stop avoiding life, sensations, emotions, and truth, and to meet ourselves as we are: human, imperfect, evolving.
We teach you ways to meet life in new ways so that you can ride the many waves of life (with no need to 'regulate your nervous system' constantly!). Our participants return to life with more ease, and confidence that they can approach (not avoid) whatever comes up and navigate through a moment at a time with confidence and ease.
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