What if balance wasn’t something you trained from the ground up but something your brain orchestrates moment by moment?

In this episode of Somatic Movement and Mindset, Heidi Hadley explores why true balance begins in the brain and nervous system rather than the feet. You’ll learn how perception, sensory feedback, and habitual tension patterns influence stability, posture, and confidence in movement, and why simply strengthening or stretching the feet often misses the bigger picture.

This conversation brings together neuroscience, somatic awareness, and real-life movement habits to help you rethink balance in a way that feels empowering and practical.

🧠 In This Episode, Heidi Explores:

Why balance is a brain-based process, not just a muscular one

How your nervous system uses sensory input to keep you upright and adaptable

The role of unconscious holding patterns and learned habits in balance issues

Why fear of falling or instability can quietly change how you move

How gentle, mindful movement helps retrain the brain for steadier balance

✨ Key Points to Reflect On:

Where do you notice unnecessary tension when you are standing or walking?

How often do you rush movement instead of allowing your brain time to sense and respond?

Are you trusting your body or constantly bracing against it?

What changes when you slow down and bring awareness to how you move?

🎤 Watch the TEDx Talk

This episode beautifully complements my TEDx talk on pandiculation and nervous system based pain relief.

👉 CLICK THE LINK BELOW to watch my TEDx talk presented through TEDx
Pandiculation: The Natural Solution to Chronic Pain and Discomfort

CLICK THIS LINK: https://youtu.be/hfOe-oiHWDU?si=1bNPGERnmMvcULon

🌿 Join my Upcoming Online LIVE Event, Navigating Midlife in February.

If this episode resonates, you are warmly invited to my upcoming ONLINE LIVE experience:

Navigating Midlife
A supportive, science-informed event exploring movement, mindset, and nervous system health through times of change.

👉 CLICK THE LINK BELOW to learn more and register
CLICK THIS LINK: https://TotalSomatics.com/Midlife

👉 Explore guided sessions and ongoing support inside the Total Somatics Membership

🚀 Take Action Today:
***Learn how to work intelligently and kindly with your soma.***

TO PURCHASE THE NUMBER 1 BEST-SELLING PRODUCT IN 47 COUNTRIES FROM THE TOTAL SOMATICS,
Release tight Hips & Back with Clinical Somatic Movement from within the
ONLINE SHOP, CLICK THE LINK BELOW:
https://totalsomatics.com/audio-instruction/

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HEIDI HADLEY:
ONLINE SHOP:
https://totalsomatics.com/audio-instruction/
TO LEARN MORE:
https://TotalSomatics.com
WAITLIST:
https://totalsomatics.com/join-now/
📌 Stay Connected:
Instagram @total.somatics
Facebook @TotalSomatics
Subscribe to the Total Somatics YouTube Channel

Support the show

In this episode, we explore a powerful and often misunderstood truth about pain. Pain is not simply a muscle or tissue problem. It is a brain based experience.

Modern pain science shows us that the brain plays a central role in how pain is created, interpreted, and maintained. While muscles may feel tight, weak, or painful, they are often responding to messages coming from the nervous system rather than being the root cause.

You will learn how protective patterns develop in the brain through stress, injury, trauma, repetitive movement, or emotional load. Over time, these patterns can keep muscles in a constant state of contraction, leading to ongoing discomfort, stiffness, and pain even when there is no longer tissue damage.

This is where clinical somatic movement becomes so effective.

Clinical somatic movement works directly with the brain through slow, mindful, intentional movement. Instead of forcing muscles to stretch or strengthen, this approach helps the brain update outdated protective signals. Through processes such as pandiculation, the nervous system can relearn how to fully release muscle contraction, restore movement efficiency, and reduce pain at its source.

In this episode, you will discover:

• Why pain is an output of the brain, not just a symptom of the body
• How chronic muscle tension is often a learned neurological pattern
• Why stretching alone rarely creates lasting relief
• How clinical somatic movement retrains the brain to reduce pain naturally
• What it means to work with your nervous system rather than against it

If you are navigating midlife changes, persistent pain, or a sense that your body no longer responds the way it used to, this conversation will resonate deeply.

Go to: https://TotalSomatics.com/Midlife and join me & other guest speakers to this FREE Online Event

I would love you to join me for my upcoming FREE ONLINE event taking place over the weekend of 21st and 22nd February.

Navigating Midlife is a supportive, science-informed experience designed to help you understand your body, brain, and nervous system during this important stage of life.

👉 Go to https://TotalSomatics.com/MIdlife to learn more and register

Watch My TEDx Talk

If this episode resonates with you, I invite you to watch my TEDx talk, Pandiculation The Natural Solution to Chronic Pain and Discomfort, on YouTube.

Click the link below to watch my TEDx Talk:

https://youtu.be/hfOe-oiHWDU?si=jPQbKEol10BumgzS

Please like, share, and comment on the talk as it helps spread this important message about pain, movement, and nervous system health to a wider audience.

Stay Connected

This year brings a range of exciting and advanced resources, programs, and experiences through Total Somatics. From deeper education in clinical somatic movement to nervous system regulation and mindset support, there is so much ahead.

Stay connected so you do not miss what is coming next. Your body and brain are capable of far more ease, comfort, and resilience than you may realise.

Learn how your body’s instinctive movements can transform pain relief naturally.
Please like, comment, and share to help spread this empowering message! 💬💗

👉 Explore guided sessions and ongoing support inside the Total Somatics Membership

🚀 Take Action Today:
***Learn how to work intelligently and kindly with your soma.***

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE.

Support the show

In this episode of Somatic Movement and Mindset, Heidi Hadley explores why trying to change habits through willpower alone often leads to frustration, burnout and self-criticism and what actually works instead.

Many habits are not conscious choices. They are automatic patterns driven by the nervous system and reinforced by repetition, stress and past experiences. When the body and brain perceive threat, overload or pressure, they default to what is familiar, even if it is no longer helpful.

In this episode, you will learn how lasting change happens when we work with the nervous system rather than against it.

We explore how clinical somatic movement and pandiculation are used to interrupt habitual patterns stored in the nervous system. Pandiculation is a voluntary, slow and mindful contraction followed by a controlled release. This process helps the brain receive new sensory feedback from the body, updating outdated motor patterns and reducing unconscious tension.

By bringing awareness to the body and gently re engaging the brain body connection, the nervous system is given new information. This allows old habits to soften and dissolve without force, discipline or pushing through resistance.

Rather than asking “Why can’t I change?”, this approach invites a different question
“What is my nervous system protecting me from?”

In this episode, Heidi covers:
• Why willpower is unreliable under stress
• How habits are formed and maintained by the nervous system
• The role of sensory feedback in changing behaviour
• How pandiculation interrupts unconscious patterns
• Why slowing down creates faster long term change
• How to create safety in the body so new habits can emerge

This is an episode for anyone who feels stuck in patterns they intellectually understand but struggle to change, whether those habits relate to movement, posture, pain, stress responses, thoughts or behaviours.

Join the Global Free Online Event

If this episode resonates with you, Heidi warmly invites you to join her for the global FREE online event, Navigating Midlife, taking place over the weekend of 21st and 22nd February 2026.

This online summit brings together practical, evidence informed conversations and tools to support midlife with greater ease, clarity and nervous system regulation.

To register for the Navigating Midlife online summit, visit
TotalSomatics.com/Midlife

I would love to have you there.

🎥 Watch next:
👉 Heidi’s TEDx Talk: “Pandiculation: The Natural Solution to Chronic Pain and Discomfort”

CLICK THIS LINK TO WATCH HEIDI'S TEDx TALK:
https://youtu.be/hfOe-oiHWDU?si=weTCMHNHi1AzCJEA

Learn how your body’s instinctive movements can transform pain relief naturally.
Please like, comment, and share to help spread this empowering message! 💬💗

👉 Explore guided sessions and ongoing support inside the Total Somatics Membership

🚀 Take Action Today:
***Learn how to work intelligently and kindly with your soma.***

TO PURCHASE THE NUMBER 1 BEST-SELLING PRODUCT IN 46 COUNTRIES FROM THE TOTAL SOMATICS,
Release tight Hips & Back with Clinical Somatic Movement from within the
ONLINE SHOP, CLICK THE LINK BELOW:
https://totalsomatics.com/audio-instruction/

TO LEARN MORE:
https://TotalSomatics.com

Support the show