By Orit Krug  |  June 20th, 2020

The length of time it takes to heal from trauma depends on the therapeutic journey you have traveled so far.

If you’ve been in talk therapy for 20 years, then you may believe that it has taken you 20 years to heal from your trauma.

If you have been in energy healing for 5 years, then you may believe that it has taken 5 years to heal.

But the reality is that it doesn’t take that long to heal from trauma; it’s just that these forms of therapy don’t work to heal trauma effectively, quickly, or in a way that lasts.

Heal trauma by releasing it from the body

Your trauma is stored in your nervous system and body; however most therapies don’t fully heal your trauma by focusing on your physical body.

If you start to heal your trauma the right way and release it from your nervous system it can take as little as 3 months to start feeling results.

Of course, everyone’s healing journey is unique, and time-frames differ depending on factors such as your specific trauma history and your level of awareness you have right now about your trauma.

If you have never addressed your trauma or if you haven’t embarked on any healing then it could take longer because you’re just starting your journey.

However, my team and I have helped our clients experience healing in as little as three months, sometimes even less. Particularly with those who have undertaken other healing therapies and who know of and are aware of their trauma.

Once you work through your trauma from your body and nervous system, all the talking you’ve done in therapy synergizes into your experience and you can release the trauma and heal quite quickly.

Start your trauma healing journey today

The thing about healing your trauma is that it’s not hard. It may have felt hard to date because you’ve been trying therapies that don’t quite tap into your trauma. Or you may have been working through DIY programs that aren’t focusing on how to release trauma that is trapped specifically in your body.

But all that can stop when you choose to work with a dance movement therapist.

They are trained to work with you to gently and safely help you to reconnect with your body in order to rewire your nervous system for healing. And as a bonus: healing your trauma in this way is fun and it lasts!

Stop believing that your trauma cannot be healed.

I invite you to start your journey to heal from your trauma today, in a way that truly works and sticks.

You deserve to find peace in your body & let love in without fear.

The latest trauma research shows that cognitive-based therapies cannot fully access trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body. Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain-Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal trauma from the physical body or nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for many people. They end up feeling stuck, even after spending decades of therapy and gaining so much self-awareness.

If you relate, you might’ve considered giving up on your healing. You might wonder if a fully integrated healing is not possible for you.

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing deeply & wholly, because we all have neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection to love, joy, and openness.

But even with an effective neuroscience-backed Somatic approach, going to weekly sessions could still require many more months or years until you feel that “click” in your body that finally makes you feel WHOLE.

That’s why I run Somatic Trauma Healing Retreats where many people experience accelerated, integrated, and lasting healing in just a few days.

(Disclaimer: each attendee must go through an application process that ensures this accelerated healing is possible for them).

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, I’d love to invite you to check out my retreats! There are several options from women’s healing, plant-assisted, 1:1, and more.

By Orit Krug  |  June 19th, 2020

Dance therapy releases trauma from the nervous system by helping you to reconnect to your body again after numbing and dissociating, perhaps for a long time.

When your nervous system is triggered and responds automatically to past traumatic experiences, it does so usually in one of four ways: fight, flight, freeze, or shut down.

If you find that this is happening more and more often in your romantic relationships, then it’s a strong indication that it may be time to release trauma from your nervous system.

How dance therapy can help with releasing trauma from the nervous system

Trauma memories are stored in our body as fragments of sensations and emotions; therefore, moving our body in new ways often stirs up this past trauma. Working with a Board-Certified Dance/Movement Therapist, who’s trained in healing trauma, will help you gently and safely connect to your body again without getting hijacked by these old memories.

As a Dance/Movement Therapist myself, I am trained to see my clients’ micro-movements and attune to their micro-body signals that tell me they may be having a fear response, as we’re moving in session together. However, instead of their nervous system hijacking their bodies physical & emotional responses, I help them regulate and remain present in their bodies and our therapeutic relationship.

This means that although they may feel the fear arise, their system won’t react in fight, flight, freeze, or shut down mode. They begin to stay connected within themselves and all their relationships, and they become in command over how their bodies respond to fear and stress.

Releasing trauma by rewiring your nervous system

The movements that you might experience through a trauma-informed and neuroscience-backed Dance Therapy program allow you to rewire your nervous system right there in the present moment of each session. This happens by expanding your window of tolerance around what currently triggers you and what feels scary to you. 

The more you can feel the fear come up in your body and move through the fear, instead of reacting in survival mode, the less scary your triggers feel and the more you can stay present and connected in your romantic relationships and beyond.

In your relationship this looks like truly hearing your partner when they speak, listening without reacting defensively, speaking up instead of running out on a conflict, and wholeheartedly letting your partner’s love flow in.

Dance Therapy through play and creativity

What sets Dance Therapy apart from other therapeutic modalities are the elements of play and creative movements. These systematic and organic movement processes allow you to PHYSICALLY become a healthier, happier version of you. It’s no longer a theory that you think or talk about to your friends or therapist. It becomes real in your body, where you feel incredible shifts instead of just imagining them. Your change becomes embodied.

Plus, when you engage in play or creative movement in a healthy therapeutic relationship, you can be guided to bring your nervous system to a Sympathetic State or Mobilization state without fear (the sympathetic / mobilization state is also known as the “Fight/Flight” state).

The more you have healthy, fear-less experiences in movement and play in Dance Therapy, the quicker you can teach your body that you CAN be in an activated nervous system state without fighting or running away. As you can see in the infographic above, this means you would be able to play, have sex, be sensual, speak up, and follow through on many more healthy patterns without sabotaging or escaping your relationship.

With a trauma-informed Dance/Movement Therapist, you can also allow your body to become comfortable with gentle, minimal movements that can help you cuddle, rest, make loving eye contact, and lay calmly with your partner without fear (shown in the bottom right section of the infographic above).

In sum, the movement and play that is unique to Dance Therapy can help you become deeply comfortable and satisfied with intimacy instead of running away from it.

You deserve to find peace in your body & live freely without fear.

The latest trauma research shows that cognitive-based therapies cannot fully access trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body. Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain-Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal trauma from the physical body or nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for many people. They end up feeling stuck, even after spending decades of therapy and gaining so much self-awareness.

If you relate, you might’ve considered giving up on your healing. You might wonder if a fully integrated healing is not possible for you.

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing deeply & wholly, because we all have neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection to love, joy, and openness.

But even with an effective neuroscience-backed Somatic approach, going to weekly sessions could still require many more months or years until you feel that “click” in your body that finally makes you feel WHOLE.

That’s why I run Somatic Trauma Healing Retreats where many people experience accelerated, integrated, and lasting healing in just a few days.

(Disclaimer: each attendee must go through an application process that ensures this accelerated healing is possible for them).

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, I’d love to invite you to check out my retreats! There are several options from women’s healing, plant-assisted, 1:1, and more.

By Orit Krug  |  June 18th, 2020

Knowing how to release trauma from the nervous system is largely dependent upon the level and severity of the threat your system perceives it is under.

When you have trauma stored in your nervous system, and you are triggered, your system automatically reacts in one of four ways: fight, flight, freeze, or shut down.

When this occurs it’s a good indication that you need to release the trauma from your system.

Doing so, however, involves rewiring your nervous system to start responding differently when the subconscious memories of your trauma are triggered.

Learn how to change your instinctive reactions

The complexity is that each nervous system reaction is essentially a survival response. The way your nervous system responds (either fight, flight, freeze, or shut down) will depend on how severe a threat your system perceives you to be under.

For example: when your partner gets frustrated with you, despite them being a loving and healthy partner, your nervous system may feel like this action is a HUGE threat because you grew up with a father who was unpredictable and violent. So, you tense up your muscles and you freeze. You cannot stay present and connected with your partner because your nervous system feels a threat or a fear in the moment.

Successfully release trauma from nervous system in a therapeutic relationship

Working with a dance movement therapist (also known as an Embodiment Coach) who can support you and has experience is really the only way you can successfully release trauma from your nervous system. This is because you need to gently and safely rewire your nervous system through connecting with your body and movement.

Teaching your system to respond differently when it perceives a threat is a process of practice and patience and requires a safe and secure therapeutic relationship to guide and facilitate the rewiring experience.

A dance movement therapist will help you to expand your comfort zone in a supportive environment so that when you feel afraid in your romantic relationship, your nervous system no longer hijacks your body. Instead you stay present, have control, and get to CHOOSE how to respond.

This can only occur after working through past experiences where your nervous system has responded as if under threat, with a dance movement therapist who helps you to stay present and connected in the moment of the interaction. This act of rewiring shows your nervous system that you can feel the fear, however instead of your system taking over in the moment, you can consciously create new ways of behaving.

You get to release the trauma from your nervous system with control and support.

You deserve to heal your trauma & find peace in your body.

The latest trauma research shows that cognitive-based therapies cannot fully access trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body. Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain-Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal trauma from the physical body or nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for many people. They end up feeling stuck, even after spending decades of therapy and gaining so much self-awareness.

If you relate, you might’ve considered giving up on your healing. You might wonder if a fully integrated healing is not possible for you.

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing deeply & wholly, because we all have neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection to love, joy, and openness.

But even with an effective neuroscience-backed Somatic approach, going to weekly sessions could still require many more months or years until you feel that “click” in your body that finally makes you feel WHOLE.

That’s why I run Somatic Trauma Healing Retreats where many people experience accelerated, integrated, and lasting healing in just a few days.

(Disclaimer: each attendee must go through an application process that ensures this accelerated healing is possible for them).

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, I’d love to invite you to check out my retreats! There are several options from women’s healing, plant-assisted, 1:1, and more.

By Orit Krug  |  October 22nd, 2019

You must understand your nervous system in order to heal past trauma and save your relationship.

You can think of your nervous system as your body’s alarm system that runs wiring through your brain and through your body.

Your body and your brain are always communicating back and forth to each other. This interaction between body and brain intensifies when there’s a threat or perceived threat in your environment.

A threat or perceived threat in your life might be your partner yelling or public speaking.

Your nervous system’s main job is to warn you of danger and protect you from harm.

It sends signals through these wires which are also connected to your major organs to get your body ready to survive through fight, flight, freeze, or playing dead.

This is why, when you feel anxious, your:

• Heart rate increases
• Body heats up and sweat
• Chest gets constricted and breathing gets more rapid

These are all the things that are working through your system through your wiring to save you from danger or death.

These reactions aren’t rational or conscious. They happen before you can even think about it.

When you’ve been through trauma, your nervous system is on HIGH alert.

A nervous system on trauma is like an alarm system in your house that goes off all the time even when there’s no intruder.

Picture someone walking hundreds of feet away outside of your house and the vibrations of this person’s footsteps set off your home’s alarm system.

That’s what happens in your nervous system when you still have trauma stored in your body.

Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.

Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.

Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.

This is NOT true!

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing from the past, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.

My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).

You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.

Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:

• Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
• Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
• An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.

Click here now to sign up!

By Orit Krug  |  July 24th, 2023

Can you be upset with your partner without it becoming a massive fight?

Many women lose their power when they say they’re upset but then apologize for their feelings (this defeats the purpose of communicating their needs).

Others will go into fight mode and become verbally aggressive, which makes their partner instinctively fight back or shut down.

The key to expressing your frustration without fighting is to stay in your power and be ASSERTIVE.

What’s the difference between being assertive vs. aggressive and how do you communicate this when you’re upset with your partner?

Here’s an example of being assertive (see video above), “I’m really mad that you went out of the house for 4 hours without telling me where you’re going, what you were doing, and not responding at all to my texts while you were out. That is really not okay with me.”

An aggressive version of this might sound like, “Where did you go?! What did you do?!” While possibly cursing and yelling through angry interrogation.

Both versions express your anger, right?

But when you’re aggressive, you’re out of control. Your voice, words, and your body become hijacked by the fight response in your body and your partner has no choice but to also physiologically respond to you in fight, flight, or freeze.

It might be hard to REALLY know the difference if you’re like me and you grew up around constant acts of aggression within your family (passive aggression counts!), but it’s important to fix this NOW.

Constant fighting slowly kills you, your partner and your relationship altogether.

It’s highly stressful and exhausting for your nervous system to go into survival mode every time you fight. It releases cortisol and weakens your immune system. When this happens ALL the time, it makes you and/or your partner sick in the long run.

Even after the fight is over and you’re filled with regret about the things you said or you’re both constantly on guard because you never know when the next attack will be… this takes a LOT of energy out of you. Yes, it takes a lot out of you to be upset with your partner.

The good news is that there is a WAY to express your anger and get your needs met without so much stress.

When you’re assertive, you’re in COMMAND of your response and you get to choose what you say.

There’s a big misconception, especially for women, that we have to choose angry OR calm. If you express your anger, then you’re a “b*tch.” That’s the message we get from most men, the media, etc.

F*ck that!

You can express your anger AND be calm. You do not have to shut down your feelings because others are uncomfortable when you speak up in your power.

There’s actually a physiological state in your body where you can be in a sympathetic response (fight/flight) AND be calm & regulated. That’s exactly what being assertive is about.

Being assertive is the key to getting what you want in your relationship without constantly fighting.

When you’re assertive, you choose the words you say, how loud you say them, and what your body is doing as you say them.

Being assertive means you’re regulated and present enough to notice when your PARTNER is getting dysregulated, so you can walk away or stop the conversation before sh*t hits the fan.

Imagine how empowering it is to be in the driver’s seat of your interactions together, without losing control or apologizing for your feelings.

Even if you can’t imagine your partner NOT reacting, no matter what, they will eventually adapt and co-regulate to your calm nervous system state, and your relationship will feel totally different and more peaceful.

Let’s start changing this right here, right now.

If you feel comfortable, close your eyes or lower your gaze.

Imagine yourself being assertive with your partner. You tell your partner that you’re upset in a really calm, direct, powerful, and honest way. You say exactly what’s on your mind.

How are you standing? What are your hand and body movements like? How close or far are you in physical distance? What’s the tone and volume in your voice?

Visualize this for a few minutes.

Now, take note of the answers to the questions above.

Maybe you’re standing really tall and your movements are more direct and strong, but not threatening. Whatever images came to your mind and body – remember that.

Now, change the scene. Now you’re in this aggressive mode: angry, yelling, possibly cursing at your partner.

How do you look now? What’s your body doing now? What are your movements like now?

When I do this for myself, I picture my arms flailing in all different directions and my body is slouched over.

These feel VERY different when I do this exercise myself. The first scenario feels powerful and confident while the latter makes me feel embarrassed and sad.

Assertive and aggressive are two very different states & ways of being in our physical bodies.

This is why having a script and practicing what you’ll SAY rarely makes a difference, because when the moment comes, your body takes over.

But if you can understand the way your physical body behaves in conflict with your partner, then you’ll be in a much better position to make a lasting change to this pattern.

So I encourage you to do this visualization over and over again and note the differences in your body so you’re aware of what needs to change. Your body is the difference that your partner can see and mirror, so that you BOTH remain calm and confident, without impulsively attacking each other.

If you find that you are still impulsively reacting or shutting down with your partner, then this is a strong sign that your nervous system must be rewired in order for you to change your behaviors.

Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.

Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.

Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.

This is NOT true!

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing from the past, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.

My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).

You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.

Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:

• Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
• Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
• An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.

Click here now to sign up!

By Orit Krug  |  August 20th, 2019

“If ONE more person tells me to ‘just breathe’ when I’m angry, I’m going to f^&%ng punch someone in the face!”

Does this kind of inability to control your anger sound familiar?

Maybe it’s your partner who tells you to breathe or “relax” when you get mad and it makes you even more frustrated. If it was THAT easy, you would already be doing it, right?

The strategy I’m about to share with you is a game changer. Check it out:

You can read the steps below, but I encourage you to watch the video to see how it works.

1. Control your anger by visualizing it

Visualize your anger moving down your body as you feel your emotions bubbling up.

To help with visualizing your anger, you can put a color and motion on the emotion. So you can visualize a red heated energy rising up in your body. Or a black, thick heavy liquid that’s expanding from the center of your body, up to your chest and throat.

It doesn’t matter what the image is as long as you use your imagination. There’s no right or wrong, so don’t think about it too much.

This initial step helps you gain control early on as you grasp an image of anger in your mind’s eye and change the direction of the emotional energy.

2. Control your anger by using your feet

Once you’ve visualized your anger moving down your body, you can FEEL that same energy moving down your legs and reaching your feet.

As you feel your anger in your feet, connect to it by walking away and out of the room where you’re having a conflict or argument.

This helps you do something physically productive with your anger AND saves you from draining a lot of energy and feeling hurt. Because when you’re unable to control your anger in an argument, you’ll probably say things you’ll later regret and the fight escalates more than necessary. Therefore, it is BEST to walk away.

Now, a lot of people will challenge me at first and say “I can’t just walk away.” And I say, “Why not?” Why can’t you just walk away? Why can’t you be in your power instead and make that choice to step away? Because it’s going to be SO much worse and WAY more stressful on your emotions, your body, and your relationship if you keep trying to yell over each other.

So use your angry heated energy from your feet to walk out of the room, into a space where you feel more safe and have a fair chance at calming down. You and your partner can always resolve your issue later, when it’ll be MUCH more productive and easy.

3. Slow down your anger and let it dissolve

Once you charge into a private space, gently slow down your pace. People will often get to this step and completely stop as they collapse onto a bed (freeze) or ramp up their energy by throwing things or yelling into a pillow (fight) to “release” their anger.

Going into a fight, flight, or freeze response at this step defeats the purpose of steps 1 and 2 because these impulsive nervous system reactions take over your brain and body and kick you out of control anyway.

So as you enter this new room, use your angry energy to keep walking through the room. Then, slow down your pace VERY gradually. Picture yourself driving a car and then taking your foot off the gas pedal until the car completely stops. Your body is like the vehicle that reaches zero miles per hour without ever touching the brakes.

This strategy prevents you from forcing yourself to shut off or exacerbate your very real feelings of anger in your body. With the gradual deceleration, you allow yourself to feel ALL the spaces in between, from getting to really, really angry to finally feeling calm. You don’t fake feeling calm – you allow yourself to fully move through the emotion so that you can truly dissolve it.

Uncontrollable anger usually stems from unresolved trauma trapped in the body.

You can use this anger exercise as a coping skill, which may help you stop an outburst before it happens.

However, if you are constantly irritable, frustrated, and feeling the urge to snap– then you probably have unresolved trauma lingering in your body and nervous system.

You’ll need to rewire your nervous system and release trauma from your body in order to reach a new baseline of calm and compassionate in your relationships, instead of anxious and resentful.

Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.

Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.

Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.

This is NOT true!

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing from the past, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.

My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).

You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.

Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:

• Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
• Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
• An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.

Click here now to sign up!

By Orit Krug  |  July 22nd, 2019

Trauma is stored in the body AND your nervous system.

Releasing trauma from the physical body is one of the biggest steps that people miss on their trauma healing recovery, which keeps them stuck in the same behavior patterns even after they rewire their nervous system.

While trauma is stored in our fight, flight, freeze and shut down responses of our nervous system, it’s also trapped in the muscles, movements and sensations of our physical body.

Our daily actions manifest from what we feel and do with our physical body. Old behaviors and habits don’t change unless we release trauma stored in the body.

So when you think, “I really don’t want to snap at my husband when he doesn’t help around the house” but you still do (even though you’ve practiced a script of nicer things to say), then that’s a good sign that your trauma is still stored in your physical body.

Even though the trauma is gone from your nervous system, the habit is still in your body.

As much as you tell your mind to do something different, you’ll continue to act as if your past trauma is happening today if your body is still holding onto old trauma.

My clients quickly realize how much old trauma they’re still storing in their bodies as soon as we start physically moving out of their comfort zone. That’s when memories suddenly start coming up from YEARS ago. Things that they thought were already resolved.

A lot of these memories go back to VERY early years. Because when we have little to no verbal vocabulary as babies, we store even more memories in our physical bodies because there’s literally no other language to remember them.

Think back to when you were a toddler. That’s likely when your first trauma happened and got stored beneath the trauma that you also experienced in unhealthy relationships.

When your body holds onto trauma for SO long, you develop behavior patterns that exist to protect you from hurt.

Perhaps you grew up with a narcissistic father. Since you were a child, your “freeze” response activated and your shoulders tensed up every time he neglected your feelings.

Or maybe you’ve had an overbearing mother who constantly invaded your privacy. Your “flight” response activated and your body hunched over in an effort to protect your space (since you couldn’t actually escape as a child).

Any situation today that slightly resembles those original traumas will trigger the same or similar physical responses in your body. It becomes SO automatic that you don’t even think about it, like brushing your teeth or riding a bike.

Your physical body needs to believe that the danger of the past is in the PAST.

Let’s take the example of the narcissistic father setting off a nervous system “freeze” response. The freeze is a more ancient reaction that creates A LOT of tension in our bodies to become less appetizing to predators who want to eat us (dad is the “predator” in this scenario).

If you have spent years freezing up whenever you get triggered, then that’s your body’s only understanding of how to respond to fear.

So when you want to speak up to your partner during an argument, you’ll still have that impulsive freeze response in your physical body, even if you’ve already released that pattern from your nervous system.

If all your body knows is tension, immobilization, and collapse during confrontation, then you have to PHYSICALLY learn new ways of being in order to BE a different way.

Release trauma stored in the body and learn new ways of responding with physical movement.

Every movement represents a physical behavior.

For example: to speak up during confrontation, your body needs to understand being direct, strong, and taking up space in movement, so that you can powerfully assert yourself without losing your sh*t.

The specific movements that you’ll need is unique to you, your specific patterns, and how you’re storing your past trauma in your body.

Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:

• Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
• Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
• An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.

Click here to sign up now!

By Orit Krug  |  July 17th, 2019

Have you been working hard to but in the end you’ve realised you cannot heal trauma on your own?

Unfortunatly, it is true: you cannot heal trauma on your own.

Don’t get me wrong, you are amazing and courageous for trying to heal your trauma, but when you try so hard and don’t see results, it’s hopeless and frustrating, like “I’ve tried everything and I can’t be fixed. I’m broken.”

You’re not. You just need support.

It is NOT your fault that you can’t heal trauma, but doing it on your own is a huge part of the problem.

You cannot rewire your nervous system and build healthy attachments unless you do it IN relationship.

Imagine a newborn who is crying and screaming and kicking and ahhh! They just can’t control their emotions or regulate themselves. They need a parent to help them learn how to calm themselves down until they internalize that skill and can do it themselves.

If we left this infant alone instead, without a caregiver, they would probably grow up to be a serial killer, ha!

No, seriously, though. We can only build healthy nervous systems and gain control over our primal responses THROUGH relationship.

I saw this all the time in my work with preschool children who had serious emotional disturbances and oppositional behaviors as a result of emotional neglect and trauma. They would sometimes have tantrums for 3 hours, unable to calm down no matter what we tried.

They didn’t have the neurological capacity to become calm because they had so much damage to their nervous system wiring at only 3-5 years old.

To expect yourself to heal trauma on your own is like expecting a child to grow into a normal healthy adult without parents. It’s an inevitable fail and it doesn’t turn out pretty.

Play and spontaneous connection are VITAL for trauma healing.

One of the most effective pillars of my work with clients is play and spontaneous movement. Play helps tone your Vagus nerve which strengthens your nervous system and expands your window of tolerance.

So you begin to tolerate more triggers to the point where it doesn’t bother you anymore and you feel SO proud of yourself for feeling so relaxed.

Play happens IN relationship and therefore we can only fully heal in relationship.

Sure, we can play on our own to a limited extent, but it’s absolutely not the same as socially engaging with another, which is a biological necessity to survive and thrive as humans.

Most people who try to heal their trauma are approaching it way too seriously.

Your trauma is serious and your feelings should always be taken seriously, but pushing play and fun aside until you feel better actually prevents you from healing.

Instead of dedicating hours to DIY videos and reading self-help books, imagine a therapeutic relationship where you burst into laughter together after you try on a silly movement.

You might even feel like, “That’s silly (or dumb)” or “No! We need to be serious about this.”

But when you teach your body how to gracefully shift between neurological states of fear and play, then you learn how to stay connected and engaged with your partner, even when they upset you.

You naturally go from feeling CRUSHED when your partner forgets to bring you flowers for your birthday, to feeling disappointed and still able to engage in a connected, productive conversation…. Maybe even make-up sex shortly after!

One of the biggest things that has helped a recent client heal from her PTSD is us laughing and moving together. Before our work together, she couldn’t even look at herself in the mirror because she thought, “I’m too ugly, too stupid, too old.” She learned to loosen up and love herself, especially while being silly.

When you take shortcuts to trauma healing, you end up wasting more time and money.

Yoga classes, meditation, self-help books, and online courses are NOT the same as the process described above.

Even if you’re taking a yoga class with other people, you’re only going through your own individual process alongside other people.

Nothing else holds the same power and effect of moving and playing within a safe container of a safe relationship, working intentionally to strengthen and empower yourself at the level of your physical body, the ENTITY that you use to interact with the world.

It’s hard to trust someone else after what you’ve been through.

It feels dangerous to trust someone else to help us because the worst instances and trauma in our lives happened when we trusted other people to be there and protect us. Turns out they didn’t and we were horribly hurt instead.

I completely understand. I avoided getting help for a really long time. It took me over 20 years to see a therapist.

But honestly, if you find the right person and a safe therapeutic relationship to heal your trauma, you can quickly create amazing relationships in your life. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.

Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.

Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.

This is NOT true!

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing from the past, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.

My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).

You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.

Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:

• Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
• Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
• An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.

Click here now to sign up!

By Orit Krug  |  May 1st, 2019

Imagine if you felt confident and proud of yourself for speaking up instead of holding in your real feelings and worrying so much about how it’s going to affect your partner.

By holding in your real feelings, you might feel like you’re protecting them from feeling the “burden” of your feelings or maybe it’s just easier for you not to deal with how they might react.  

It creates a huge wall in your relationship.

This is a BIG reason why a lot of couples feel so disconnected after years of being together. They hardly know each other and it feels so awkward and hard to come back into each other’s lives again.

It’s NOT your fault. Holding in your real feelings is actually a habit that is embedded in your body.

Allow me to paint a picture of how this happens:

I was recently working with a client who had a repressed memory pop up as we moved together in session. 

It was a situation she wouldn’t have remembered through talking, even if I dug around with a bunch of questions. Because this was a specific traumatic memory that she subconsciously stored in her body, when she stopped her parents from attacking each other.

She was the one who took responsibility to make sure that they didn’t hurt each other while no one else in her family did. So she learned from a very young age in her body and in her nervous system, that if she didn’t take responsibility – if she didn’t hold it all everything would fall apart and someone would seriously get hurt.

Her body doesn’t believe it’s SAFE to let go of control.

She believes she has no choice but to hold it together every moment, every single day.

When your body holds deeply stored trauma memories, your nervous system doesn’t know the difference between the fear of telling your partner you’re upset and the fear of your parents attacking each other (or whatever YOUR story is).

That’s why it feels so hard today. That’s why you freeze up and don’t say anything instead. 

Or you avoid it, walk away, and push it down further until you explode.

Again, it’s NOT your fault. It’s actually what you’ve learned from a really young age. 

Your body thinks it’s protecting you from pain and hurt, but that same protective mechanism keeps your partner at a distance and creates a huge divide in your relationship.

If you want to feel good about speaking up, you have to access and release those traumatic memories from your body.

Talking about it doesn’t access what’s deeply lodged in your body.

Telling your mind to speak up in the moment doesn’t change anything when your body reacts first.

Your body HAS to believe that it’s safe to let go of that responsibility. Your body has to believe that things aren’t going to be so horrible and dangerous and life threatening. 

I’m not being dramatic! This is what your nervous system and primal body think.

According to your primal body, it IS a matter of survival. Bessel Van der Kolk says in The Body Keeps the Score that your body MUST believe that the danger of the past is actually IN the past.

Until you have a physical experience that proves that what happened isn’t happening in your current reality, then you’re going to keep repeating the patterns of your trauma today.

Your body has to physically learn how to let go of fear and confidently speak up without worrying about getting hurt.

It’s going to feel uncomfortable for your partner at first because they’re used to you taking responsibility all the time.

Their nervous system will also have to adapt to that new you.

That’s okay, that’s a great shift for you both. They’ll actually come to really love it and and be really RELIEVED by it because you’ll take down your wall and create a much deeper connection. You’re no longer going to be holding in your real feelings. 

Another amazing benefit is that they get to take care of YOU. Once you let your guard down, you’ll feel a deep sense of love by letting someone else deeply hold you.

You’ll also have to adapt to this because you’ve been taking care of everyone else and your nervous system will have to expand its tolerance to letting go of responsibility.

You have to physically learn how to step back and RECEIVE more.

It’s a beautiful thing for your relationship because your partner inherently WANTS to take care of you. They can feel useful and purposeful in your relationship without begging to be an important part of your life. Without begging to see those real feelings you’re holding in.

I work with many clients who tell me that their relationship is on its last thread when we start working together. For example, a client recently told me, “I need to quit my job and start my business. I know he’s gonna freak out and we might just have to go our separate ways.”

We worked on training her nervous system to feel safe to speak up without fearing abandonment and once she told him, she said “wow, that was easy. It wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it would be!”

Instead, she was calm enough to be assertive by no longer holding in those real feelings and and letting him in at the same time.

This is the power of releasing your trauma through your body and becoming a new confident you who’s proud about speaking up for herself.

I know that can seem SO far off from where you’re at now, but unfortunately that’s the effect of talking so much about it and not actually releasing your trauma from your nonverbal subconscious.

When you tell the same story over and over, you’re just reinforcing the same old story in your head and not moving on with new experiences in your body.

One of my clients recently said to me that the best revenge that she could get on her abusers was to finally feel that joy and pleasure in her body.

How amazing is that?!

If you’re scared of doing this work, let that sweet revenge be your motivation.

Like, I’m going to be HAPPY! Take that, m***f***er!

This is deep, profound work, and JOYOUS work.

You do have to grieve a little bit once you access and release that trauma because it creates this whole big space in you. It feels a bit empty for a short period of time because you’ve been carrying it for so long and it was a huge part of your identity.

The grief is an awesome sign because you’re letting go a part of you that no longer serves you, you’re no longer holding in your real feelings, and you get to make space now to be this new confident and happy you.

Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.

Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.

Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.

This is NOT true!

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing from the past, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.

My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).

You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.

Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:

• Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
• Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
• An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.

Click here now to sign up!

By Orit Krug  |  April 16th, 2019

Working in a psychiatric hospital has taught me a lot about love and relationships.

Spending almost every day at the psych hospital teaches you a lot about life, love and relationships. I was in charge of around 10 creative arts therapists who ran the hospital’s group therapy and I did dance therapy for the patients too.

You see what it’s be like to be your absolute lowest in life.

I never felt immune to the idea that it could be me. Sometimes people had completely normal lives and BOOM! Their husband was killed. They got into a crazy car accident. And they were never the same.

Our lives can fall apart at any moment.

I learned a lot about relationships because I ran dance therapy groups for 10-30 people at a time, who were suffering from severe depression, anxiety, addiction, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and generally feeling suicidal. It wasn’t usually a very cheerful room. The energy was very heavy.

I’ve always believed that the essence of being a human life is social connection.

That’s why we’re here and it’s a huge part of what I cultivated in my dance therapy sessions at the psych hospital.

I knew I had to help my patients feel connected to each other and to themselves, but I had to be strategic. I slowly warmed them up and guided them to playfully connect and move with each other.

There were almost always people who were never ready to open up, no matter how much the group encouraged them too. Or there were people who, no matter how good the session was going, they attacked others, got into fights, and became very defensive.

Sadly, some of those people never opened up.

Most of them slowly became vulnerable and shared deeply spiritual and connected movement experiences with each other. They went from wanting to die to feeling a deep sense of belonging and purpose on this earth.

That’s what happens when you experience a deeply non-judgmental and open experience with another.

Love and fear cannot co-exist.

If you’re stuck in your head or in a constant state of survival mode, you cannot feel the highest capacity for love.

If you build walls to protect yourself or attack others to defend yourself from getting hurt… or worse, if you’re so controlled by fear that you become frozen and shut down, then you won’t be able to truly love.

We have to trust others so we can connect in love and relationships, because when we’re in fear, our social brain shuts off and our reptilian brain runs our behavior.

That means that when we have deep unresolved trauma, we’re more likely to behave like the animals we once were BEFORE we became social and cannot experience love as we know it.

Trauma can have a special shitty way of preventing us from ever getting the most out of love and relationships again.

I witnessed this in myself for my entire life, before I met my husband. And I saw this over and OVER again, across thousands of groups.

Sometimes, every person in the room stood up in a circle, hands on heart, and made eye contact with each other. Feeling no fear, no shame, no judgment. Feeling true human to human love.

But there was just 1 person sitting on the side with their arms crossed and looking at this happening, unable to physically join no matter how much they tried convince themselves.

As much as they told themselves to “just try,” their nonverbal subconscious brain took control said “DON’T you move! It’s way too dangerous in there.”

You cannot reach your highest potential of love without resolving the trauma deeply stored in your body.

It’s only when you really bring those walls down, become vulnerable, and freely express yourself (even to disagree with your partner).

If you’re in a relationship right now and resonating with this post, you probably realize there’s something missing, but maybe you can’t put your finger on what it is.

TRUE love is the most amazing thing we can experience on this earth for FREE.

So from the bottom of my heart, I know it’s not easy, but please do what it takes to let your guard down and to transform your love and relationships.

Do what it takes to resolve the trauma that’s taking over your body.

If you tell yourself, “I’m going to speak up and be vulnerable. I’m gonna stop worrying that he’s gonna hurt me,” but your nonverbal subconscious only focuses on the trauma from the past, your hurt is still PRESENT.

Affirmations and positive thoughts alone cannot control your fight, flight, freeze responses.

So do whatever it takes to resolve that trauma from your past. Even if it’s not obvious what trauma you experienced. It could be mild neglect because your feelings were never a priority in your family after growing up with siblings who need a much, much more attention.

Do whatever it takes to resolve this trauma and if that means you need to find a safe space first, then do it.

No romantic relationship today can resolve yesterday’s trauma.

No relationship is going to fill the void of the love that you didn’t get in the past. A great relationship can help A LOT but you need to do the inner-work first.

No partnership is going to feel as good as it CAN unless you resolve the past and then truly open the floodgates to receive and give love.

I know I’m giving tough love right now, but I experienced this too and it feels AMAZING to be on the other side of it all.

Get on the right path to healing trauma from your body and nervous system.

Many people spend decades and thousands of dollars in traditional therapies trying to heal their trauma. Unfortunately, even the most popular therapies are scientifically shown to be limited in accessing trauma stored in the non-verbal brain and body.

Even alternative approaches, such as EMDR and Brain Mapping, are often not enough to fully heal from the physical body or the nervous system.

This makes trauma healing a very frustrating journey for so many people. They often blame themselves for being “un-healable” and decide that they’re broken.

This is NOT true!

Every human being is 100% neurophysiologically capable of healing from the past, because we all have wiring and neural pathways that can be rewired from fear and overprotection, to love and openness.

My unique, scientific-backed process via Dance Therapy has helped hundreds of clients finally heal from past trauma and transform their relationship (even after decades of trying in other therapies).

You can heal too, but you need the right methodology.

Sign up for my online course (ranges from free to $20 USD) to begin a unique, body-based learning experience that will teach you:

• Science-backed education about how trauma is stored in your body and nervous system. You’ll gain an understanding why it has NOT been your fault you haven’t healed yet from past trauma.
• Gentle, guided body-based movement that is necessary for integrated healing. This is crucial if you want your mind’s intentions to match your body’s behaviors in relationships.
• An embodied approach to healing that has helped hundreds of clients break unhealthy relationship patterns and let in healthy, lasting love.

Click here now to sign up!