I spent this morning reading the The Human Flourishing Program at Harvard's report on the research on character, flourishing, and community wellbeing in the school. I attached the full report if you are nerdy like me and want to dive into some very interesting data. Than had Claude make a list of all the ways it supports the Neuro-Somatic Integration Framework and then wrote up this support of NSIF based on the research. It really got me excited about what we are building! I will post my writing in the Science and Theory course in the classroom. My plan is to launch a NSIF community of practice in the fall.

I just added this quote from Prentis Hemphill's book, What It Takes to Heal, to my website "For healing to take place, for it to be felt, for it to root, remake, and rearrange us, it has to happen not only in the realm of our thinking, but in the soil of our bodies. Healing has to be embodied." I have re-listened to several episodes more than once, and re-visted the book a few times as there is always so much to digest If you are not aware of their work, it really is a must-read/listen. If you have read this book or listened to their podcast, share your thoughts in the chat! The Podcast Becoming The People is full of wisdom and grace! https://prentishemphill.com

Rooted in Science. Guided by Nature. Embodied in Practice. A Framework Update From Regulate to Root: Naming What We've Always Meant Hello, Rooted community 🌿 I want to share an evolution in the Neuro-Somatic Integration™ Framework that I've been sitting with for a while — one that feels small in language and significant in meaning. The first phase of the spiral has been called Regulate since the beginning. Rhythm & Safety has always been its companion phrase. And the substance of this phase has never been in question — it's where we tend the nervous system, where we work with rhythm, breath, co-regulation, nature, play, and somatic centering. It's the soil everything else grows from. But over time, I've noticed something. The word regulate has come to carry a narrower meaning in the wider conversation than what we actually do in this work. In popular use, "regulate" has become shorthand for calm down — soothe the system, lower the activation, return to neutral. And while there is absolutely a place for soothing, that is not what regulation has ever meant within this framework. Regulation here is capacity, not calm. It is the ability to feel what is happening inside, sense what is happening around us, and respond with choice. Language matters. And when the word we use keeps being heard as something smaller than what we mean, that is worth listening to. So we're updating the language: The first phase of the spiral is now Root: Rhythm & Safety. Same framework. Same science. Same practices. A more honest name for what we have always been doing. Here is why Root carries more of what this phase actually is: When we root, we are not simply calming the nervous system. We are tending to something deeper — the relationship between body, land, physiology, and presence. Rooting brings together what this phase has always pointed toward: - We find our ground. Literally — through the feet, through the breath, through the contact between body and earth. - We connect to what is important. Values, meaning, relationships, the things that make this life worth being present for. - We feel our body in relationship to the earth. Not separate from nature, not isolated from the more-than-human world, but in living, reciprocal contact with it. - We presence our dignity. This one matters most. We are not problems to be regulated. We are living beings worthy of taking up space, worthy of the time it takes to land in our own body.