Curiously Connected

24/11/2025

Consistency is where it’s at…

15/11/2025

“Recovery isn’t just a matter of retraining the brain or soothing the body. It requires safe, attuned relationships and social environments that allow the nervous system to downshift from survival mode. Without addressing these systemic and relational factors, the body remains on alert, the nervous system remains dysregulated, and healing is partial.”

An excellent message - many have read The Body Keeps The Score, such a foundational work in trauma awareness, but I whole heartedly endorse the need to understand, sense, feel into and create change around relationship and social environments - bringing awareness to how this feels in your body is a significant part of the work I do as a craniosacral therapist.

If you are interested to know more or experience the nourishing quality of craniosacral therapy - message or WhatsApp me on 07740955517 🌱

What's missing from "The Body Keeps the Score?" From an Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) perspective, Bessel Van der Kolk's book
largely overlooks the relational and systemic context in which trauma exists and persists. He touches on relationships and collective trauma, but the framework focuses on the individual body and brain.

IPNB shows that the nervous system’s regulation depends on ongoing safety in relationships, communities, and environments. Hierarchies, abusive institutions, and chronic social stress keep survival adaptations active, no matter how many therapies are applied.

Recovery isn’t just a matter of retraining the brain or soothing the body. It requires safe, attuned relationships and social environments that allow the nervous system to downshift from survival mode. Without addressing these systemic and relational factors, the body remains on alert, the nervous system remains dysregulated, and healing is partial.

Van der Kolk opens the door to relational and somatic healing, but IPNB emphasizes that trauma is as much about the social world as it is about the individual body. The full path to recovery must attend to both: the body’s physiology and the relational, institutional, and cultural contexts that sustain safety, or keep systems trapped in threat.

NOTE : this is not to dismiss or degrade Bessel Van der Kolk's work or his book. Just a note about what's missing, and filling in the gaps so people can gain that understanding.

13/11/2025

Great to be back at CrossFit Cairngorm delivering these sessions!

Breathing for performance- 3 week mini course with .connected is back!

🫁Have you considered how a few small changes to your breath could improve recovery? 
🫁Do you ever find yourself gasping for breath or having difficulty catching your breath after an all out effort?
🫁Do you feel like your heart rate and breathing get out of control?

If the answer is yes then this is for you!

⚪️1900-2015 on Wednesday 19th November (instead of mobility) for 3 weeks
⚪️Part of your regular memberships
⚪️Book in via Push Press as you would for Mobility Class.

05/11/2025

Great post

Do routines that connect movement to purpose.
Not just workouts. Not just habits.

A morning run with a friend.
A weekly hike that reminds you the world is bigger than your worries.
A shared meal where presence matters more than perfection.
A call to someone who’s been too quiet,
because strength is also the ability to reach back for others.

This is how you build a life that feels strong
not just a body that looks strong.

Movement is more meaningful when it brings you back to each other.

29/10/2025

Here is part of a reply to a client following a discussion about tension held in his body. I find myself being drawn to sharing some of these snippets, hopefully offering small insights into working with a feeling state 🌱

Intensity is an interesting one to play with - we can have the same thoughts or actions but be intense - or more gentle in how it plays out in our nervous system.
A good example is to practice and notice that most people can relate to - looking at computer screen - notice getting ‘sucked in’ to the content, focus is sharper, there’s an ‘intensity’ - this drives the sympathetic response (activating) within the nervous system - will play out as increased tension in muscles, joints, frown on forehead etc etc - also increase respiratory rate and heart rate , where as a softer approach - metaphorically ‘sitting back’ in your body, looking at the screen from your eyes in a more spacious way will be much more balancing, less stressful and likely better decision making, more tolerant etc etc

Noticing this kind of thing is a skill, being with the sensation that informs your thinking brain!

If you are interested in exploring the wisdom your body has to offer but dont know quite where to start - craniosacral therapy can bring connection at the deepest level

I’d love to hear from you - 07740955517 🙌

06/10/2025

Wishing you well in your evolution!

*** We’re evolving! ***

We’re excited to share that Speyside Swimming Academy is becoming SwimWise Scotland.

As we prepare to register our swim school as a Community Interest Company (CIC), we’ve chosen a new name that reflects our renewed focus on swimming inclusion, accessibility, and community benefit.

This marks a change in business structure—but not in our teaching spirit. SwimWise Scotland will build on everything we’ve created through Speyside Swimming Academy: swimmer-centred instruction, local knowledge, and a strong sense of community, while expanding our reach and deepening our public value.

Our new contact email, website, and branding will roll out in the coming weeks, but our mission remains the same: supporting swimmers of all ages and abilities with care, clarity, and inclusivity.

Thank you for being part of our journey.

Always Swimming Safely,
Sarah, Louise & Alysha

16/09/2025

Great words Martin McPhilimey MSc MRes - Scientific Consultant

Every breath you take begins with a small cluster of neurons in the brainstem generating its own rhythmic electrical impulse. This spontaneous spark initiates movement, drawing air into the lungs, transferring oxygen into the bloodstream, and fuelling the body’s metabolic demands. In that moment, breathing is not simply a mechanical act: it is the foundation of arousal, readiness, and the perceptual intensity that prepares you to engage with the world.

Breathing is not merely air flowing in and out. It is the root of your vitality—the thread that binds your physiology, emotions, and behaviours. It is both the rhythm of your body and the quiet scaffolding of your mind. Philosophically, it sits at the threshold between the unconscious and the conscious, a biological reflex that you can also shape with awareness. In this way, breath embodies the paradox of human existence: automatic yet voluntary, physical yet spiritual.

It is time we began to recognise that the way we breathe shapes the way we live. Breath patterns influence our perception, our states of arousal, and ultimately the way we perceive the world itself. By changing our breathing, we alter not only our physiology but also the lens through which we experience reality.

Science is only beginning to map the profound relationship between breath, brain, and body. We are still scratching the surface of how respiration interlaces with attention, emotion, and selfhood. Yet, what is already clear is that conscious engagement with breathing- what we call breathwork, offers the possibility of profound shifts in health, resilience, and meaning.

This is why our mission as a industry together is to raise awareness, deepen understanding, and create pathways for individuals to use breath as a tool for connection, connection to health, to each other, and to the deeper significance of life itself. If embraced, breathing has the power to help humanity move towards lives that are healthier, happier, and more deeply aligned with purpose.

14/09/2025

Spending dedicated time mastering a regulated, smooth and coordinated breathing pattern can reap massive rewards in health and performance.

If you are looking for a breathing ‘MOT’ messsage for an appointment. I provide a physiotherapy level assessment with step by step guidance for optimal trchnique.

Suitable for
- Gaining confidence in your breath - particularly when reliant on inhalers
- Reducing breathing anxiety
- Improving performance
- if you notice you breath shallow or fast
- most chronic health conditions

If this sounds of interest I’d love to hear from you 🌱

10/09/2025

I like the simplicity of this chart - very clear how breathing patterns/ shapes influence how we feel and affect thoughts and decisions

20/08/2025

“Rooted in presence, relationship and embodied wisdom” describes the attributes of my life’s calling - craniosacral therapy. Every story, every session, every body deepens the layers of possibility.

Powerful words below 👇

Our hands hold stories of comfort, connection, and care. To place a hand on a wound, a heart, or a weary body is to return to something timeless: the truth that we are all made to care for each other.

In Craniosacral Therapy, our hands become listeners— tuning into the body’s natural rhythms, its subtle tides and pulsations. This is not about imposing something from the outside, but about creating a safe space where the body’s innate healing intelligence can emerge.

Our touch becomes a bridge — where our electromagnetic fields attune, nervous systems co-regulate, and something shifts at a level deeper than words.

We’re inviting the whole system back to a place of coherence, safety, and trust. This is why healing with the hands is so profoundly human — it reminds us that true healing is never just physical; it’s energetic, emotional, and relational.

🌀 At Craniosacral Collaborative, we believe in lifelong learning rooted in presence, relationship, and embodied wisdom. Our courses are designed to support your growth as a practitioner, deepen your capacity to meet others, and awaken new layers of connection — to yourself, your clients, and the world around you.

Image with appreciation to 🙏🏼

04/08/2025