Feather your own nest

17/11/2025

What’s fascinating is not just that somatics and polyvagal theory echo Indigenous Knowledge it’s the unexpected places where science is finally catching up.

Here are some lesser-known intersections:

🌿 The nervous system responds to micro-movements, not only big rhythms.
Somatic research shows that tiny, repetitive hand movements, weaving, knot-tying, beading, rolling fibres activate fine motor pathways linked to ventral vagal calm.
Our old people have known this forever weaving pandanus, twining plant fibres, tying fishing nets, carving message sticks, threading shells, mapping stories in sand.
Indigenous fibre arts are not just craft they are regulation, memory and medicine.

🔥 Heat is a vagal regulator.
Warmth on the skin is one of the strongest signals of safety, it lifts vagal tone and softens defensive states.
Indigenous practice has always held this truth...fire ceremony, sun-warmed sand, warm ochre on the body, smoking ceremony and sitting close in story.
Warmth is medicine. Country knows how to settle the nervous system long before science named it.

🌬️The vagus nerve is about 80% sensory, it listens far more than it speaks.
Science shows it carries the body’s stories up to the brain.
Indigenous Knowledge has always known this...wisdom rises from gut, heart, feet and Country, not just from the thinking mind.

🌱 Plants speak directly to the nervous system.
Scent travels straight into the limbic system...the emotional brain without passing through thought.
This is why lemon myrtle, eucalyptus smoke, wattle blossom, native mint, crushed gum leaves, warm resins and flowering plants (and other scented plants) are so regulating.
Our old people have always known that plant kin calm the body before the mind even catches up.

🌊 Water sound tunes the nervous system.
The low, rhythmic frequencies of flowing water sit in the same range as alpha brainwaves...the patterns of calm presence and creative insight.
Our people have always known this...sitting at creeks, rivers, rockholes, billabongs and ocean edges to listen, to cleanse, to let Country regulate the body.
Water changes the brain before the mind even realises it.

👣 Walking on soft terrain changes the whole stress response.
Sand, soil and leaf litter increase proprioceptive input.... the deep-body sense that calms the limbic system and steadies mood.
Our people have always known this...healing happens barefoot, in motion, on earth that yields gently beneath you...dunes, bush tracks, riverbanks, mangroves, desert soils and the soft ground around fire.
Country regulates the body with every step.

✨ These aren’t just beautiful overlaps they’re reminders.

The body remembers.
Country speaks.
And science, slowly, is learning the language our Ancestors never forgot.

12/11/2025

12/11/2025

“One of the hardest things to admit is that we are sometimes addicted to suffering that feels familiar. That we prefer the ache we know to the freedom we don’t. That pain becomes an identity. That endurance feels noble. That people-pleasing gets coded as virtue. That ‘doing the work’ becomes a performance of spiritual masochism, and we are applauded for how gracefully we tolerate the intolerable”. —museguided, Why We Stay In Rooms We Should Leave

Artwork by Hilma Af Klint

02/11/2025

Shame doesn’t help foster change.

28/10/2025

I think about this quote at least once a day:

"Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world."
—Eckhart Tolle

Artwork by Lui Mort

28/10/2025

28/10/2025

https://www.aconsciousrethink.com/52054/10-ways-your-childhood-experiences-write-the-script-for-the-rest-of-your-life-without-you-realizing-it/?fbclid=IwZnRzaANtkqVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHrZP59hH6ljHQuPqnajHkcdaesy2ClsDYBnEVh3c1TtE1A1QqU5d-7u8EUrf_aem_RNqZcZDt43-AF9g_eIDnDg

Have you ever wondered why certain situations make your heart race for no logical reason? Or why you keep ending up in similar relationship patterns despite promising yourself things would be different this time? The answer often lies decades in the past, in experiences you might barely remember but...

13/10/2025

“It’s not arrogance. It’s clarity.”
— Meryl Streep

There comes a moment in life when something inside you quietly shifts.
It’s not that you become colder — you simply become clearer.

You start to understand the true worth of your time, energy, and peace,
and you stop handing them to people who haven’t earned the right to them.

I’ve lost patience for certain things —
not out of resentment,
but out of discernment.

🚫 I have no space left for cynicism, for constant complaining, or for empty gestures of kindness.
🚫 I no longer fake smiles for those who never return them.
🚫 I refuse to spend a single heartbeat around those who lie, manipulate, or drain my spirit.

I no longer chase approval from those who don’t care to understand me.
I no longer run after love that isn’t freely given.

I’ve lost interest in hypocrisy, in flattery without sincerity,
in conversations that feed ego but starve empathy.

I’ve learned to walk away — from anyone who threatens the peace I fought hard to find.

I no longer entertain “selective intellect” or arrogant forms of wisdom.
I steer clear of gossip, drama, and the endless game of comparison.

🧠 I believe in contrast — in balance born from difference.
That’s why I stay away from rigid minds afraid of change.

🤝 In friendship, I now value loyalty over perfection.
I keep close only those who know how to offer a genuine word,
a quiet gesture of support.

Those who dramatize everything? Exhausting.
Those who don’t love animals? Probably not my people.

And most of all —
I no longer give my patience to those who haven’t earned it.

✨ This isn’t cruelty.
It’s maturity.
A calm declaration that says:

“My peace is my priority.”

And maybe — just maybe —
that’s the most powerful form of freedom there is.
Echoes of Insight

23/09/2025

A Tuesday gift for you. I love this insight into the DARVO acronym and since first hearing about it, it just made immediate sense when dealing tricky people.

A Defense Against Gaslighting Sociopaths
If you can recognize their signature move, then forewarned is forearmed.
~ Arthur C. Brooks

“What just happened?” you’re asking yourself.

You knew the conversation would be tricky because you had to tackle someone about their misbehavior. Maybe it was a colleague who claimed your work idea as their own; maybe it was a new friend who said nasty things behind your back; or maybe it was a romantic partner who was unfaithful. The evidence is incontrovertible—so much so that, had the boot been on the other foot, you would be confessing your error and asking for forgiveness. But that’s not this person’s MO.

No, in the face of clear wrongdoing, they denied everything. Instead of showing contrition, they counterattacked, maybe even accusing you of the very behavior they committed. To top it off, they played the victim and cast you as the real offender. The whole interaction left you upset and confused—even questioning your perception. Is it possible that you got the whole thing backwards?

Congratulations, you have just been mugged by DARVO, an acronym that stands for “Deny, attack, reverse victim and offender.” DARVO is a technique we may well encounter in our daily life when dealing with sociopathic personalities. This type of person-to-person psychological warfare is designed to deflect any penalty for misbehavior, and turn it instead into an opportunity to gain power over you. For a well-adjusted, mentally healthy person, to be DARVO’d is a bewildering and unsettling experience. But once you understand how the technique works, you’ll never have to be its victim again.

What type of person tends to gaslight others most effectively? The answer is the Dark Triad, the estimated 7 percent of the population I’ve written about previously who have above-average levels of three negative personality traits: narcissism (it’s all about me), Machiavellianism (I’m willing to hurt you to get what I want), and psychopathy (I feel no empathy for you and no remorse when I victimize you).

An obvious course of action, if you believe you have been a DARVO victim, is to avoid the perpetrator in the future. Dark Triads don’t generally change their ways, because they can’t alter the gray matter governing their emotional regulation and reward systems. Further, their psychopathic tendencies make them incapable of remorse: If you’re not sorry for doing something, and it yielded the results you sought, you will go on doing it.

Adishonest person, however, never admits to having misjudged another person, and will gladly turn defense into offense. So be alert to DARVO, and learn to avoid the perpetrators.

20/09/2025

06/08/2025

One day, you will meet people who will not just acknowledge your existence but value it.

You will find a job that recognizes your strengths and passion and lets you play with it. You will find a mentor who believes in you and pushes you to your limits. You will earn an audience that values your work. You will meet strangers to tell you that nothing is wrong about how big your dreams are and how wild your drive is. You will meet friends who don’t just include you but make you a part of a whole. You will meet someone who makes you feel that you aren’t hard to love, you aren’t difficult, and you aren’t delusional for wanting a love that’s both securing and freeing. One day you’ll find an environment that brings out the best version of you rather than the survivor version of you.

One day, you will cross paths with things and people that are good for your soul. One day, you’ll find your place in this world.

— Ali

— Artwork : wifi313 (IG)