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Hello Reader,

I'll admit - this week I often felt like it was just too much… the kids, the relationship stuff, settling into winter, and the pressure of goals all piling into me. Whenever life gets crowded like this, my system does what yours probably does too: it speaks through sensations. Tightness in the chest you can't release, a flare of pain, that heavy fatigue that makes everything feel uphill, or a spike of anxiety that seems to come out of nowhere.

Some of you asked me what I do when life gets like that, what I practice. In moments like these, I find myself going back to basics: slowing down (a lot), listening in, being in my body with awareness.

Musings

If there’s one thing I’ve learned through this work, it’s that our bodies rarely shout without reason. Pain, fatigue, and anxiety may look like three separate problems on the surface, but they’re often different dialects of the same language: the language of protection.

Over the years, I’ve watched the same pattern unfold in clients dealing with chronic pain, burnout, and spiralling anxiety. Behind the symptom, there is always a brain trying its very best to keep you safe. And the more overwhelmed we get, the louder these protective signals tend to become.

When life feels like “too much,” the brain recalibrates. It narrows your energy budget. It heightens your sensitivity. It predicts danger even in ordinary moments. And suddenly your inner world feels confused, noisy, or unstable.

Returning to basics creates clarity. A little space opens. And from that space, the nervous system can begin to update its predictions, to learn, and to find its way back to steadiness. Try it with me this week.

🎁 NeuroSomatic Practice of the Week

🧠 NeuroMinute...

The brain is constantly generating guesses about what’s happening in and around the body, then updating those guesses based on incoming signals.

Lisa Feldman Barrett and Kyle Simmons argue that the brain continuously issues predictions about internal bodily states and adjusts them based on context, so our emotional and physical feelings, including anxiety and bodily distress, are constructed from these predictions.

Brain imaging work also shows that regions like the insula and anterior cingulate cortex are involved in both pain and emotion processing, which helps explain why physical pain, anxiety, and fatigue so often travel together. From a neurosomatic perspective, this research supports a simple but powerful reframe: when pain, fatigue, or anxiety get loud—especially all at once—they are not random malfunctions, but protective predictions that can be updated over time through gentle, precise sensory, attentional, and movement inputs.

PS: who would you be without your pain?

Warmly,

Joana

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