2. Befriending the Senses: A gentle introduction to working with your sensory awareness

Welcome to this next step of your journey—Befriending Your Senses.
This section invites you to gently explore how your senses can become trusted allies on your path to nervous system regulation.This section dives a little deeper into the theme of Befriending Your Senses. You’re welcome to explore more by watching the video, or reading and listening to the text below.

It’s completely optional—you may already notice that you are absorbing this understanding through your experiences in our sessions. Trust your own pace and curiosity as you navigate this material :)

The video below shares the same message as the text—just presented in a slightly different way. Feel free to choose whichever format feels most supportive right now. I

♢♢ Download a printable version of the text below below by clicking here

♢♢ Listen to an audio-only version of the text here (coming soon)

A gentle beginning: slowing down, noticing, and listening with care.

Before anything else—before trying to shift, heal, or ‘do the work’—we begin here: by softening into presence.

This first step isn’t about adding new techniques or filling your day with practices. Instead, it’s about learning to do less, feel more, and allow your body to guide you.. In fact, part of nervous system healing is learning to do less, and to feel & sense more. That means slowing down, often. It means giving yourself permission to notice what’s already happening, without rushing to change it.

Many of us—especially those with long-held survival patterns—have been conditioned to overdo. We try to ‘heal’ by efforting. But your nervous system doesn’t speak the language of pushing. It speaks the language of sensation. Of rhythm. Of slowness.

So we begin with the senses.

The senses are how your nervous system listens to the world, speaks to you—and how you can begin to speak back. This sensory dialogue lays the foundation for regulation.
 Regulation is your nervous system’s ability to move flexibly between different states—mobilising when needed, settling when safe, and restoring when rest is possible. It’s not about staying calm all the time, but about expanding your capacity to meet life and return to balance with more ease.

Your nervous system is an integral part of your body’s deep intelligence. It’s the part of you that’s always scanning for safety, always seeking balance, always trying to protect and connect. When you begin to listen and respond with care, it doesn’t just regulate—it begins to trust.

By attuning to the signals your body is constantly sending, you begin to respond in ways that restore safety, stability, and connection—one small experience at a time.

In a way, this is a kind of inner conversation: between sensation and awareness, between noticing and responding, between the deep intelligence of your body and the presence of your being.

This gentle dialogue allows your system to soften, adapt, and eventually widen its window of regulation—so you can meet life from a more rooted, responsive place.

There are many different senses…

You may know the five classical senses: sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell. But your body also holds deeper and subtler ways of sensing:

  • Your body awareness: feeling where you are in space, balance, and movement (proprioception and vestibular awareness)

  • Your internal sensing—like noticing your breath, heartbeat, or tension (interoception)

  • Your sense of temperature (thermoception)

  • Your sense of pain (nociception)

  • And your more intuitive or energetic senses—those imaginative, subtle, often unspoken ways of perceiving that don’t always have a name (sometimes called non-ordinary senses)

These are not just biological functions—they are portals into presence.
When you slow down enough to attune to them, you begin to offer your system new experiences. Even small, simple shifts—pausing, noticing, softening—can begin to rewire your inner world.

Your experience matters…

“The body learns through experience. When you try something new—even gently—you offer your nervous system a new imprint of safety, presence, and possibility.”

Often, we stay within the limits of what we already know. We repeat what’s familiar—even in our healing. So this work invites you to gently experiment. To try something new, even if it feels subtle. Tuning into the senses becomes the gateway. Because what your nervous system understands is not logic—it’s felt experience.

And your system needs time to absorb those experiences. Time to process, settle, integrate. That’s why slowing down isn’t just helpful—it’s essential.

Slowing down matters…

To understand why slowing down matters, consider this:

Imagine trying to stop a high-speed train. At 200 km/h, you can’t see the trees—you can’t take in the landscape. But when the train slows to 15 km/h, everything changes. You begin to notice what’s around you. You have time to respond and make changes. This is the pace at which your nervous system can take in new experiences more easily. 

Slowing down is not just an idea—it’s a practice in itself…

A practice that you can evolve at your own pace—gently, over time.
It’s the foundation of the work we’ll be doing together. This simple yet powerful way of giving mindful attention to the body’s signals will weave its way through all phases of the journey, in many different forms.

You’re here to slowly, gently explore the landscape of your unique nervous system fingerprint, to relate with it, and to widen its window of regulation with care. You may be surprised by the transformation that unfolds naturally—just by doing this over time.

Step by step, you’ll begin to build a repertoire of resources and practices that nourish and support you as you go. And you’ll learn to adapt them to fit you and your life, too.

If you notice something uncomfortable—that’s completely okay too. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It’s just your system showing you where it needs a bit more attention, compassion, kindness and care.

So this is how we begin—gently, with curiosity and care:

❁ By pausing
❁ By tuning into your senses
❁ By allowing space for what’s present and listening in
❁ By gently offering your system something new

Let this be your invitation:

To slow down. To notice. To explore without judgment.
To gently meet yourself—through your senses—with care.

Let this be your invitation to gently meet yourself through your senses—with curiosity, presence, kindness and care. Step by step, you’ll build a foundation that supports you throughout this journey.

As you move through each phase, remember to honour your unique rhythm and trust that each small step is part of your unfolding journey.