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You will be on your back on the floor.

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The link to join live is sent out in the chat to all paid subscribers - please join it today so that you are ready for next month. Based on your feedback, I will send it out with the passcode as well as the link…

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Did you shoulders feel more on the floor after this session?

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Let me know how you get on.

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There’s a moment many capable people eventually reach.

Nothing is wrong with their life.

Work functions.
Responsibilities are handled.
People rely on them.

But inside their body something feels quietly unsustainable.

The jaw rare…

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Hello - hope you enjoy this short midweek disruption, please can you all join chat as that is where I will send out the Sunday zoom links and we can chat (the clue is in the name).

I am opening a few nervous system sessions this week and next for you if your bod…

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Get more from Nahid de Belgeonne in the Substack app

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Get more from Nahid de Belgeonne in the Substack app

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I’ve been thinking about obedience and how easily we absorb the cues of those around us who normalise sociopathic behaviour. Before we know it, we’ve fallen into line, even when something deep down resists.

Obedience doesn’t begin with fear. It begins with reward. Perhaps you were praised for being easy, no trouble. For being adaptable. For not making a fuss. For knowing what other people needed before they asked. For not rocking the boat or appearing impolite.

“Such a good girl.” “So mature for your age.” “So calm.” “So capable.”

That praise didn’t just land in your mind. It landed in your body. And your body did what bodies are designed to do…it learned.

The Neuroscience of “Good Behaviour”

Here’s what happens when a child receives praise for compliance: their brain releases dopamine, the reward neurotransmitter. According to research published in Nature Neuroscience, reward-based learning creates stronger neural pathways than punishment-based learning. When you were rewarded for being agreeable, your nervous system literally wired itself around that behaviour.

Your body learned that approval meant safety. That anticipation meant belonging. That self-silencing prevented rupture.

So you became skilled. You learn how to scan a room in seconds. How to soften your tone when tension rose. How to brace through discomfort without showing it, to say “it’s fine” while something inside you tightens.

This isn’t a character flaw. Your nervous system was constantly scanning for safety cues, and it found them in other people’s approval. You got good at reading micro-shifts in other people’s energy, adjusting yourself before conflict could fully form, staying regulated enough to function even when you weren’t actually okay.

And because it worked, because you were rewarded, the pattern strengthened.

This Is How Obedience Gets Wired

Not through threat alone, but through relief. Relief when the room settles. Relief when you’re liked. Relief when you’re chosen, praised and approved of.

Your nervous system doesn’t track ideology. It tracks consequence. And the consequence was clear: stay agreeable. stay attuned. stay useful and you’ll be safe.

Research from the American Psychological Association shows that children who grow up in environments requiring hyper-vigilance to others’ emotional states develop what’s called “anxious attachment” patterns. Studies estimate that approximately 20% of adults exhibit anxious attachment styles, in my practice working with high-functioning professionals, particularly women, I’d say it was higher.

The Moment You Try to Stop

The confusing part comes later, when you try to say no, when you try to slow down, or when you question something that doesn’t feel right. Your body doesn’t cooperate.

Your chest tightens. Your voice thins. Your stomach flips. Your mind floods with justification. You tell yourself, “Just let it go.” “Don’t make it bigger than it is.” “It’s not worth it.”
Because the pattern is already running. And it still believes that obedience is safety. Discomfort is dangerous. Push it down. Perform calm. Stay liked.

From the outside, it looks like compliance, but from the inside, it feels like survival.

This Didn’t Make You Weak. It Made You Intelligent

In systems that don’t listen, families, schools, workplaces, cultures, the body adapts. It learns to override quickly and quietly. Loyal to the group.

It learns that harmony is more important than honesty. That smoothness is safer than truth. That being “good” is safer than being real.

You aren’t broken. You are being strategic. And that strategy likely helped you succeed. You became high-functioning. Reliable, respected and trusted.

But underneath the competence, your system stayed braced. Because obedience requires vigilance. You have to keep scanning. Keep adjusting. Keep anticipating.

And that’s exhausting. According to research on chronic stress and cortisol levels, people who chronically suppress their authentic responses show elevated baseline cortisol, the stress hormone that, over time, contributes to everything from insomnia to autoimmune conditions to cardiovascular disease.

Why You Can’t Think Your Way Out

Here’s where most people get stuck. You understand this pattern intellectually. You can trace it back. You can name it. You can explain it beautifully.

But in the moment your boss pushes back, or your partner withdraws, or someone is disappointed in you, your body still defaults to appeasement.

Because you cannot out-think a pattern your nervous system still believes is keeping you safe.

This is what neuroscientists call “implicit memory”, bodily memories that exist below conscious awareness. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s groundbreaking work in The Body Keeps the Score demonstrates that traumatic patterns (and yes, chronic compliance is a form of developmental trauma) are stored in subcortical brain regions that operate faster than conscious thought.

Insight doesn’t automatically equal integration, your body needs new evidence.

Undoing Obedience Is Not Rebellion

This is important. Undoing obedience is not about becoming louder. Or harsher. Or confrontational. It’s not about swinging into defiance, it’s about rhythm.

Small, repeated experiences where your system learns something new.

• Pause before saying yes

• Stay present through mild discomfort

• Let someone be slightly disappointed and survive it

• Notice the urge to override, and soften instead

Not once. Repeatedly. Gently.

Until your body begins to register: It’s safe to feel. It’s safe to have a different pace. It’s safe to stay with myself. I don’t have to perform to belong. That is the real work.

The Somatic Path Forward

Not a personality overhaul and burning everything down. But instead, return to the moment before you override, to the sensation in your chest, return to your own internal rhythm.

The body that learned obedience can learn something else. But it learns through experience not instruction.

Research on neuroplasticity shows that new neural pathways form through consistent, repeated experiences, not through cognitive understanding alone. This is why somatic practices, movement, breathwork, body awareness, are so effective for changing deep patterns. You’re literally giving your nervous system new information.

And that learning is quiet. It looks like breathing when you would normally rush. Speaking slower when you want to smooth things over. Letting silence exist without filling it.

It looks ordinary, but inside, it’s revolutionary.

You Can Retrain Through Safety

You were trained to obey through reward. You can retrain through safety. Not by becoming someone else. But by slowly remembering that belonging does not require self-erasure.

In my work, I see this transformation happen not through willpower or positive thinking, but through giving the body repeated experiences of safety in small acts of authenticity.

When your nervous system finally learns that you can survive disapproval, that mild conflict won’t destroy you, that your voice won’t cause catastrophe…everything shifts.

Not overnight, but reliably. The intelligence that kept you safe by being good can learn to keep you safe by being real.

That’s the promise. And it’s worth every gentle, revolutionary moment it takes to get there.

If this resonates with you and you’re ready to explore how somatic movement can help you rewire these patterns, I invite you to learn more about The Soothe Programme

Want to explore this inside your own body?

How to Settle a Busy Mind (Without Sitting Still)
💻 £33
We’ll work with your body’s actual design using movement, breath and attention training to rebuild regulation without forcing stillness.

Buy it here.

This week’s audio lesson is designed to deeply rest your brain. Our next monthly live will be on the 22nd February at 5 pm ( UK) and the next substack live is on Friday 27th February at 5pm (UK) with - do join us.

Until next week!

Stay human,

Nahid x

Somatic Educator + Nervous System Strategist
​thehumanmethod.co.uk

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You’ve tried to meditate. You lasted maybe ninety seconds before your brain served up that mortifying thing you said in 2014, your grocery list, and a full mental replay of every unfinished task on your to-do list.

So you decided meditation “isn’t for you.”

Plot twist: your brain is working exactly as designed. The problem? That design wasn’t built for sitting still.

Why Your Mind Won’t Shut Up

Neuroscientist Marcus Raichle discovered something wild: when you’re doing “nothing,” your brain lights up like a Christmas tree. It’s called the Default Mode Network, and it burns 60-80% of your total brain energy replaying the past, planning the future, and catastrophising about everything in between.

This network, your brain’s built-in surveillance system, has kept humans alive for millennia by constantly scanning for threats, problems, and social dynamics. Meditation asks it to power down. Your brain responds like a guard dog being told to ignore suspicious noises.

Translation: Mind-wandering isn’t a bug. It’s the feature.

Evolution Made You This Way

Rick Hanson, an evolutionary psychologist, puts it perfectly: your brain is “Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.” Your ancestors survived because they remembered where the predator attacked, not where the sunset looked pretty.

When you sit to meditate, your brain doesn’t queue up peaceful thoughts. It surfaces every unsolved problem, potential threat, and awkward interaction it can find. Research shows that when people first start meditating, your brain’s threat detector, the amygdala, actually gets more active before it calms down.

You’re fighting millions of years of wiring that kept your ancestors alive.

The Cruel Paradox

Trying hard to quiet your mind makes it louder.

Psychologist Daniel Wegner’s research on “ironic process theory” proved that suppressing thoughts makes them intrusive. Tell yourself “don’t think about elephants,” and your brain has to keep checking if you’re thinking about elephants, which means thinking about elephants.

When you sit down determined to achieve mental clarity, you create a monitoring system that interrupts your peace to check if you’re peaceful yet. You’ve hired a detective to see if the house is quiet, and now there’s a detective stomping around.

What If You Didn’t Have to Sit Still?

Here’s what the research actually shows: the physical act of sitting still isn’t what matters. What matters is training your attention to come back when it wanders.

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson’s brain imaging studies reveal that the moment you notice your mind has drifted and you return your focus, that’s when you strengthen neural circuits for attention control. The wandering and returning IS the practice.

And it turns out, you don’t need a meditation cushion to do it.

You can train the same neural pathways while moving, doing everyday tasks, or engaging in activities that feel natural to you. The science doesn’t care if you’re sitting in lotus position. It cares if you’re practising the skill of noticing and returning.

There’s Another Way

If traditional meditation feels like torture, you’re not failing—you’re just using the wrong tool for your brain.

Think about where meditation came from: monasteries full of men who spent their days cooking, cleaning and moving in community. They prepared their bodies for stillness through physical labour and regular movement. No children. No mortgages. No phones buzzing with notifications. No Netflix autoplay pulling their attention at 11 PM. They built entire lives designed for focus. You're trying to achieve the same state while juggling a job, family, bills and a device engineered by the world's smartest people to fracture your attention every three seconds. No wonder it feels impossible.

Join “How to Settle a Busy Mind Without Sitting Still” →

Your brain isn’t broken. You just need a different approach.

I’ve created an online session that teaches you how to settle a busy mind without the sitting-still requirement. We’ll work with your brain’s design, not against it, using movement, attention training, and science-backed techniques that actually feel doable.

Thursday 22nd 7 pm ( UK ) time £33 + replay Join me here.

Does meditation feel impossible for you? Hit reply and tell me what happens when you try—I read every response.

Subscribe now

More ways to SOOTHE

IN PERSON: Soothe Day Retreat – London – May 9th, 2026

It was SO lovely to teach you all over the weekend. Gathering in healing community is so powerful. The next on is in May and will be the last one for the year.

I am offering 4 x places for £150 for anyone who can’t afford the full price. When these places are gone…they are gone! Send me an email if you want to buy your space now.

A full-day retreat designed to meet the high-functioning body that’s been quietly holding it all. Across two somatic workshops, you’ll move through guided breathwork, floor-based flow, and nervous system grounding practices that don’t just release tension, they restore capacity.

This isn’t about disconnecting.
It’s about building a rhythm your system can finally exhale into.

Includes 5 hours of teaching + a beautiful vegetarian lunch.
£235 – Limited spaces. Book here.

Soothe Retreat Lefkada, Greece 27th June - 4th July 2026

The 7-Day Soothe Retreat in Greece is not an escape, it’s a return.
A week of rhythm-led nervous system work, deep rest, and real capacity-building in an environment designed to hold you.
No performing. No overexplaining. Just space to meet your body where it actually is and rebuild safety without collapse.
This is for the woman who’s done the inner work, but hasn’t yet let her system feel the difference.
You don’t need to earn this pause. You just need to let yourself arrive. More info here, email me to nab the last few rooms.

The Soothe Programme: my signature 12-week somatic strategy for high-functioning people who feel “always on” return to a felt sense of safety — through rhythm, breath, and subtle movement. It’s not mindset work. It’s body-brain rewiring. Available as a private container or as a self-paced journey with live elements. if you feel a pull, let’s talk.

Subscribe now

This week’s auio lesson is designed to pull your attention back to present sesnations. Ou rnext monthly live will be on the 31st January. Stay human,

Nahid x

Somatic Educator + Nervous System Strategist
​thehumanmethod.co.uk

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I’m getting a lot of emails lately asking:
“How do I get through this?”
“How do I stay steady when everything feels heavy?”
“How do I not fall apart?”

There’s a high-performance mantra that gets thrown around in elite sport:
“Control the things you can control.”

It’s designed to focus your attention inward, on what’s still within reach when pressure rises:

• Your effort

• Your attitude

• Your preparation

• Your focus

• Your response to setbacks

And for athletes, that can work. Because they train for pressure. Their nervous system knows what to do in intensity.

But here’s what we’re never taught:

Control without capacity isn’t regulation.
It’s survival.

When your body is already stretched thin, when your mind won’t stop looping, when the news is loud and your breath is shallow: “Focus on what you can control” can feel like another job.

In my work, we don’t grip harder. We come back to rhythm.
We practice returning to a system that can hold sensation, without spiralling.

To help you find this, I’m holding a Friday substack live today at 3pm (UK).

Join me for a 15-minute guided practice of breath, movement and awareness, designed for high-functioning humans who don’t always have an hour… but still need a way to stand down.

It’s free to attend live. Replays will be available for paid subscribers.

You’ll be on the floor, carpet works well or throw a blanket down.
Please arrive on time. The set-up is part of the rhythm, and we start together.

📲 Download the Substack app → Find me → Tap “Join Live”

No performance. No fixing. Just a few minutes to return to yourself.

Subscribe now

More ways to SOOTHE

IN PERSON: Soothe Day Retreat – London – January 17, 2026

A full-day retreat designed to meet the high-functioning body that’s been quietly holding it all. Across two somatic workshops, you’ll move through guided breathwork, floor-based flow, and nervous system grounding practices that don’t just release tension, they restore capacity.

This isn’t about disconnecting.
It’s about building a rhythm your system can finally exhale into.

Includes 5 hours of teaching + a beautiful vegetarian lunch.
£235 – Limited spaces. Book here.

ONLINE: How to Settle a Busy Mind (Without Sitting Still)
Thursday 22nd January at 7 pm (UK) 60 minutes + Recording
Book here £33
A nervous-system-first masterclass for people who’ve tried to meditate… and felt more anxious after.
You don’t need to learn to sit still.
You need a way to move with your system…not against it.

Join me for a practical, body-first workshop to gently unwind the pace your mind is holding and offer your system a new rhythm, without needing to shut it down.

We’ll work through:

• Breath and awareness tools designed for fast, high-capacity minds

• Somatic movement sequences that meet tension where it actually lives

• A new definition of “calm” that doesn’t require you to disappear to access it

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  The Soothe Programme: my signature 12-week somatic strategy for high-functioning people who feel “always on” return to a felt sense of safety — through rhythm, breath, and subtle movement. It’s not mindset work. It’s body-brain rewiring. Available as a private container or as a self-paced journey with live elements. if you feel a pull, let’s talk.

Subscribe now

Stay human,

Nahid x

Somatic Educator + Nervous System Strategist
​thehumanmethod.co.uk​

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