The Body Balancing System

17/04/2025

The #1 Thing Your Child Needs From You (And What’s Really Getting in the Way)

According to Dr. Daniel Siegel’s powerful book The Power of Showing Up, one thing matters more than anything else in parenting:

Your consistent presence.

Not perfection.

Not fancy toys.

Not even the “right” words.

Just you—being emotionally and physically present.

Siegel and co-author Dr. Tina Payne Bryson break it down into what they call the 4 S’s every child needs:

1. Safe – A child needs to feel protected from harm.
2. Seen – Not just looked at, but deeply understood.
3. Soothed – Help in managing big emotions and stress.
4. Secure – A relationship that’s consistent and dependable.

When you show up—truly show up—you’re wiring your child’s brain for resilience, emotional regulation, and future healthy relationships.

You don’t need to have all the answers.

You don’t need to fix every problem.

You just need to be there.

But here’s the real challenge no one talks about:

Showing up takes energy.

It takes energy to stay calm when your kid is melting down.

It takes energy to put your phone down and tune in.

It takes energy to listen, to soothe, to be emotionally available.

And when you’re sleep-deprived, stressed, or running on empty from work and life… that energy feels like the one thing you don’t have.

That’s where most parenting advice falls short—it tells you what to do, but not how to find the capacity to actually do it.

At PEP180, we flip the script.

We focus on training your energy and focus the same way you’d train your body.

Because the best parenting strategy in the world means nothing if your tank is empty.

Want to be more patient?

Show up more fully?

Feel like the dad you want to be?

You don’t need more willpower.

You need more energy—and trainable.

Here’s a polished and engaging version of your announcement post, keeping your voice authentic while sharpening the message:

⸻

Big News… I’m Shifting Gears.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m stepping away from the world of healing chronic pain—and stepping into something even bigger.

After 20+ years helping people heal their bodies, I realized something powerful:

What if we didn’t wait for people to break down before giving them the tools to thrive?

That’s why I’m launching a brand-new mission:

PEP180 – The Parent Empowerment Project.

Because the #1 resource parents need—more than parenting tips, more than advice—is energy.

Energy to stay calm.

Energy to stay patient.

Energy to show up, even when life spirals out of control.

My goal?

To help parents train that energy before burnout, stress, or disconnection ever take hold.

So they can raise thriving kids—and feel like thriving humans while doing it.

Watch out for the official launch of PEP180 coming soon.

This is prevention, not repair.

Empowerment, not exhaustion.

The 180 your family deserves.

27/03/2025

If you’ve ever ended the day thinking, “Why did I lose it again?”—this one’s for you.

In this episode of PEP180, we’re going deeper than “just try to stay calm” and actually looking at what drains your ability to stay patient in the first place—physically, mentally, and emotionally.

We’ll talk about:

Why patience disappears even when you start the day strong

What blood sugar, stress, and decision fatigue have to do with snapping at your kid

And the small, doable daily habits that keep your energy steady so you can stay calm when things go sideways

This video is part science, part story, and totally relatable.
No shame. No lectures. Just real stuff that actually helps.

Click this Link to watch!

If you’ve ever ended the day thinking, “Why did I lose it again?”—this one’s for you.Because here’s the truth most parenting advice skips over:You don’t have...

13/03/2025

People don't believe me today when I say I used to have a seriously short fuse.

In fact, when I was a kid, I was the one throwing shoes at windows and even knocking out my brother’s baby tooth I wasn't exactly the picture of calm.

I spent many years working on myself to control my temper.

Fast forward to becoming a dad, and suddenly, all the patience I thought I had was being tested in ways I never imagined.

But over time, I realized that staying patient isn’t just about willpower—it’s about retraining your brain and body to respond differently.

And that’s exactly what I’m sharing in my latest video.

I’m diving into how 20 minutes of exercise a day can help rewire your brain for patience and emotional control, all while improving your overall health.

While it’s not easy, its simpler than you might think!

Check out the video and let me know what you think.

05/03/2025

Dealing with technical errors and the learning curve of editing software is just one of the joys of starting something new. But after a long day, here’s my fifth video in my new YouTube adventure!

In this video, we’re diving into 5 core principles that can help you train patience like a muscle—because let’s face it, staying calm as a parent is tough. We’ve all been there: you promise yourself you’ll stay patient, and then five minutes later, you're snapping.

But what if I told you that patience isn't just a mindset? It’s about how your body and brain work together to stay in control, even when everything feels out of control.

I’ll walk you through how small changes in your daily routine can help you stay in that "window of tolerance" longer, and how you can train smarter—not harder—so you can show up as the calm, patient dad your family needs.

If you're ready to stop reacting automatically and start showing up more present for your family, hit the link below in the comments. Let’s get you started on this journey of building patience, energy, and connection through body-brain strategies!

20/03/2023

It’s scary to think how emotional experiences that you wouldn’t expect to have an impact, can leave a lasting imprint that can cause you pain.

I was 2 months old when my father died and I’ve since then learnt how this experience, I don’t consciously remember, has shaped my beliefs, behaviors and physical experience in life.

As I've learnt, this stressful period had a huge impact on my developing nervous system and its sense of safety- an essential ingredient for healthy development.

The natural development through reflexes and healthy bonding were delayed and, in some areas, remained underdeveloped causing my sensitivity to touch, light and sound that have affected my work, relationships and confidence in myself.

This sensitivity can you make your brains and nervous system a little too responsive to detecting and responding to danger signal in your environment.

As your body picks up a danger signal it naturally tenses.

If you stop and pay attention to your body for a minute and then thinking about something stressful, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Maybe you hold your breath? Maybe you feel a lump in your throat or unknowingly clench your fists?

This tension from emotions, poor posture and any other source that activates a stress response, slows the circulation to muscles and organs slowing the nutrient-in-waste-product-out cycle that’s so important to the life of every living cell.

As the cells blood supply is cut off or reduced the cells start to “suffocate” and die (also known as Ischemia.)

As long as those emotional memories are being triggered the patterns of muscle tension will remain causing more cellular death and more pain.

So how do you stop this pattern from happening?

How do you let go and relax the tension?

I’ve found the best place to start is by identifying your unique patterns of muscle tension in your body.

Keep track of these pattern and what triggers activate them you'll create the foundation you need to get rid your pain.

12/03/2023

Are you still look for the answer to why you suffer from:

• Chronic pain
• Persistent headaches
• Digestive issues
• Fatigue
• Constantly feel on edge

Did you know that all the above symptoms can be caused by unprocessed emotional experiences that stem from childhood experiences like:

• emotional neglect
• abuse
• divorce
• witnessing family violence
• exposure to drug or alcohol addiction

Unprocessed emotional experience can follow you into adulthood and may present as:

•Chronic pain
• You're constantly feel on edge and can't switch off your mind so easily.
•You're constantly trying to please, appease and avoid conflict with others at your expense.
•Fatigue

As these emotional experiences are often suppressed making you unaware of their impact you don’t even consider them a problem.

But they affect the way your autonomic nervous system responds to stress.

The above experiences can make your nervous system hyper responsive and triggers the stress response even when you don’t need to be on red alert.

Understanding the impact of unprocessed emotions have on your nervous system can be something you’re missing in your quest to living pain-free.

If you’d like to learn a practical solutions to find out and working with these unprocessed emotions (without the need to talk about them) follow my post over the next few week as I introduce my new Core, Stress and Breath Class.

Stay tuned.

P.S comment below with a thumbs up If you want me to let you know when I post again.

17/01/2023

I've just spent the last few hours reminiscing down memory lane as I added the different training program I've studied over the years. I love learning new things and have missed it since becoming a dad, immigrating and COVID.

As life settles I look forward to continue learning and growing so I can enhance my skills to help alleviate the suffering in this world.

Have a great week and watch this space to continue to learn more about selfcare, chronic pain and the body mind relationship

28/01/2022

Painful emotions can trigger you to do things you later regret.

Maybe you eat, or lose your temper with your kids.

You may feel helpless as these emotions control your behavior.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

Let me explain.

Imagine you are doing a tour in an art museum and come across a painting of black and yellow blobs.

As you look at the painting, trying to understand what inspired the artist, a tour guide shows you a picture of a honey bee sitting on a flower.

As you look back at the image you can now clearly see the bee.
Your entire perception of that painting changes in an instant.

In her book How Emotions are Made, Dr. Lisa Feldman Barret describes this process as simulation.

Simulation is when your brain is lacking information it will complete the experience by filling in the gaps based on previous experiences.

As you had no previous experiences that could help you see what was in the painting your brain was experientially "blind".

But the moment you gave your brain more information it could make sense of the painting.

Here's a little thought experiment:

Think of taking a bite out of a lemon

Can you imagine the sour tart juice as it trickles down the side of your scrunched up face.

You may have noticed your mouth salivate.

This is simulation at work.

Your brain has taken all your previous sensory experiences with lemons from taste, touch and smells and combined them together to create the concept of lemon your brain uses to simulate the experience.

And as you can see, it's not only a mental experience.

Simulation prepare your body to react to the biting into the lemon by activating the muscles you would use to respond the way you always have.

When you develop the skill of listening to you body you will can feel this simulation before you actually move. You will feel certain muscles tense just before that act.

When you stop and listen to your body and you simulate an emotional experience you will find your unique pattern of tension your brain has linked to that experience.

Now if you can change the physical response to that emotion you take away its control over you and the emotion becomes a fleeting thought.

To make an emotion real you need to make it tangible by embodying the emotion.

The skills of noticing your bodily sensations and becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable sensations your emotions can cause, gives you tools to be able to consciously choose the way you act, which in turn creates a new experience for your brain to use the next time it makes a prediction.

The best part, you don't have to get it right all the time, you just need to keep adding new experiences to your pool of experiences and over time your default prediction will start to change the way that you want them to.

If you'd like to learn and gain some practical experience with this process you should consider joining my up coming workshop.

Registration closes on the 1st of Feb.

DM for information or check out my event page:
https://www.facebook.com/events/397283912195921

24/01/2022

Stress is a necessary evil.

Stress affects the brain like a vaccine affects your immune system.

You see, any physical, mental or emotional stress helps your brain adapt, learn and thrive.

A fascinating study that highlights this point was commissioned by the Department Of Energy in the US (see the link to the study in the comments below)

This comprehensive study concluded that the 28,000 workers exposed to low levels of gamma radiation had a 24% lower mortality rate than their 32,000 counterparts who weren't exposed to radiation.

What the biology of stress show us is that a little exposure to stress and enough recovery time stress makes you stronger.

So how do you know when stress is no longer helping you?

You know you've crossed the beneficial threshold when you become snappy, irritable and simply can't stop eating.

You're easily overwhelmed and start avoiding people and things you usually love doing.

So how do you keep your emotions in the healthy threshold.

You can always go for therapy, phone a friend or chat to a stranger on the the bus, but what if you don't want to talk about them, what if you've spoken about them and speaking didn't really help you.

Well, neuroscience show us that there two parts to an emotion.

The physical sensations and the thoughts connected to the feelings.

If you'd like to learn how to manage painful emotions without talking about them you should consider joining my up coming workshop- How to manage painful emotions without Prozac or Freud

Registration end on the 1st of Feb.

Starting on February 3rd, the workshop will run every Thursday evening for 4 weeks from 8pm-9:15 pm.

The Cost 150 nis/$47 (credit card facilities available)

DM me with any questions.

21/01/2022

Have you ever had a sensory experience that triggers a fond memory?

Maybe its the smell of your favorite apple pie baking in the oven?

The smell takes you back to a time and place where you can actually feel the love and warmth from that moment in the present.

When you work with the nervous system you can trigger sensory memories from events that happened decades ago.

Once, a client started telling me a story from his days in the army.

I didn't really think much of the story at the time, but at the end of the session he says to me, "you know that was strange, I've never told anyone that story and it happened over 30 years ago....

Its a fascinating phenomenon how l memories are stored in the body.

My understanding this phenomena of how memories are stored in the body is that your brain uses emotions and your entire sensory system to create memories.

Any painful emotions that's too intense can overwhelm your nervous system that causes your brain to shut down so you suppress the memory so you function.

Suppressing these emotions over time often lead to tension, pain and even behavioral problems.

I believe one of the ways the brain suppresses emotion is also by tensing your muscles, like you tense your body to protect yourself from any pain.

What I've seen is that when you use subtle and gentle release techniques it's almost like you're tapping into the memory and people re-experience the emotion and the memory.

It's pretty cool to see.

But feeling a painful emotion can be uncomfortable, so you simply tighten up again.

I teach my clients how to become comfortable with being uncomfortable, so they can experience the physical parts of an emotion so they can let go and move forward with their lives

How does it work?

My understanding is that emotions at biologicals level only last a several minutes from the time the brain releases the chemicals, to the feeling the emotional peak and then you calm down.

The emotional cascade has to go from 0 to 100 before you actually "let go" so you can learn and integrate the life saving lessons the intense emotional experience is trying to bring to your attention.

So why then does emotional pain continue for so long if it only last a several minutes?

Like the chicken or the egg question of which came first, your mind will look for a reason to explain the physical sensation of the emotion if the feeling is still there.

I've seen this process happen many times with myself and clients.

By learning to experience the physical sensation of an emotion at 100, the body can relax and the tension connected to the memory will reduce the grip that the painful emotion has over you.

The process is like using a pressure cooker, your brain won't allow you to just open the pot with the boiling emotions. It will explode, make a huge mess and you could lose your grip on reality.

You first need to release the pressure and over time, when the pressure is fully released you can open the pot safely.

It a learning and conditioning process rather than flicking a switch.

Does this make sense?

Would like to experience the process first hand?

Starting on the 5th of February I'll be running a 30 day challenge for 10 people to teach them how to find and process the physical sensations of painful emotions.

The workshop will run every Thursday evening for 4 weeks from 8pm-9:15 pm.

The Cost 150 nis/$47 (credit card facilities available)

DM me with any questions.

20/01/2022

Do you remember back in school where you were taught that you have a limited amount of brain cells?

Well there's another "scientific myth" that's been busted.

With more advanced imaging tools, scientist have been able to peer deeper into the brain and find conclusive evidence that brain cells do grow back.

Like fertilizer for plants, brain derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF is a needed for you brain cells to grow.

BDNF combined with a new or novel stimulus helps your brain cells grow back in the thousands.

FYI cardiovascular exercise helps grow BDNF.

Yes, exercise grows brain cells. Pretty cool right?!?

In yesterdays post you discovered you brain doesn't merely react to life, it predicts the potential future and then measures the prediction based on current sensory information.

If the prediction is correct, your brain will carry out the predicted action.

If incorrect the brain will make an adjustment to your action and add a new experience to your pool of predictions.

This whole cycle is why the state of the your nervous system is so important.

When you're stress reflex is active you're more likely to have a negative experience of things as stress makes you focus on potential threats... the negative stuff.

Think about how much more frustrated or annoyed you get when you're tired or hungry?

Like hunger and fatigue, painful emotions also activate the stress response resulting in tension, pain and worst of all, a cycle of negative predictions.

If you're enjoying learning about how emotions are made and how you can manage them holistically keep your eyes open for tomorrow post.

OR

If you're up for the adventure sign up for the 30 day online challenge starting on the 3rd of February to learn how to use your body's to process and integrate painful emotional experiences without talking about them.

Check out The Body Balancing System page for more details or DM me for information on registration.

19/01/2022

Did you know that when you're happy your amygdala is active?

Now if you're a neuroscience geek like me, you'll probably second guess yourself and think, "I thought the amygdala was connected to the fear response?!?!"

It turns out in a study that was done in 2008 that the amygdala processes all new or novel stimulus.

Like Einstein theory of relativity showed us that Newtons Laws weren't absolute, the science of the mind is forever changing.

At best a scientific fact is simply the best running theory until now...

In my search of finding different solutions for chronic pain I came across the the book of "How emotions are made" by Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett

This latest theory on emotions has turned the science of emotions on its head.

Barret's research shows us that your brain isn't a reactive brain but a predictive one.

Your brain actually predicts how you should feel and act based on previous experience rather than simply reacting.

Barret explains that all the stimulus you're exposed to would cause a reactive brain to crash like your internet when all you neighbors are streaming HD movies at the same time.

All of these prediction and activation of muscles to act happen BEFORE you're even aware of your emotional state.

Think about that for a moment.

If your brain is predicting potential outcomes of a situation based on previous experiences can you change the way you act if you change your experience?

To find out, look for my post tomorrow or follow The Body Balancing page to make sure you don't miss the next post.