Back Mountain Music Therapy

01/13/2026

What we run from or numb from, will only grow and follows us like a shadow

01/10/2026

All behavior and interaction makes logical sense if we focus on how it is organized to stabilize self maintenance, self regulation .And when we see it this way, we easily avoid pathologizing and are able to aid growth.

01/10/2026

Parts can only be understood within the context of the whole.

01/10/2026

As we strive for profound cultural awareness, shouldn't we shift our focus towards a systems theory approach that acknowledges the intricate web of interactions, rather than solely fixating on end behavior, and in doing so, unlock a more nuanced understanding that empowers positive transformation?

01/10/2026

Remaining aware

Long before the term “post-traumatic stress” entered modern medicine, many African communities had an intuitive understanding of the invisible wounds of war. A returning warrior was not immediately welcomed back into daily life. Instead, he entered a sacred period of transition—often lasting three lunar cycles—under the guidance of a spiritual healer or shaman. This was not punishment or exile; it was a ritual of healing, an acknowledgment that violence fractures more than the body—it disrupts the spirit.

The belief was that the warrior carried a chaotic energy, a spiritual imbalance that could harm both himself and his community if left unaddressed. One of the oldest healing practices involved placing animal horns on the skin to draw out “stagnant blood”—a technique later misnamed “African cupping” by colonizers. It was more than medicine: it was ceremony. It released not just physical toxins, but the unspoken pain, the emotional residue of violence.

Today, we call it trauma. They called it spiritual imbalance. In our clinical, pill-driven world, we often treat only symptoms. But these ancestral practices remind us that true healing restores harmony—within the self, and between the self and the world. Perhaps in our rush to advance, we’ve overlooked the power of ritual, of community, of soul-level care. Perhaps it’s time to remember.

01/10/2026

Music-based regulation is revealed through interaction. It allows the therapist to discern which musical conditions support a client’s ability to enter, sustain, and recover co-regulation during music making.

These conditions are about composing music while identifying how specific musical elements and their ranges support or disrupt engagement within interaction.

01/07/2026

Teach them how to feel

01/07/2026

If your child falls apart after school, it’s not because they’ve been “holding it in all day to save it for you”.

It’s because school requires constant regulation, masking and compliance — often far beyond a child’s nervous system capacity.

All day, many children are working hard to sit still when their body wants to move, stay quiet when noise feels overwhelming, follow instructions when their brain is overloaded, and hide anxiety, confusion or distress just to get through.

From the outside, they may look calm, capable or “fine”.
Inside, their nervous system is running in survival mode.

By the time they get home — the safe place — the effort runs out.
What comes next can look like tears, anger, refusal or shutdown.
But this isn’t bad behaviour.
It’s the cost of holding it together all day.

This visual is here to reframe what after-school meltdowns are really telling us.
Not “they’re being difficult”.
But “they’ve been coping for longer than their brain could manage”.

Support doesn’t start with consequences.
It starts with understanding, decompression and safety.

👉 Explore our Masking Toolkit for deeper support around restraint collapse, regulation and neurodivergent wellbeing
link in comments below ⬇️ or via Linktree Shop in Bio.

Save this. Share it with a parent or teacher.
Because behaviour after school often tells the truest story.

01/07/2026

Emotions are meant to move, not be suppressed or resisted.

They carry messages, not permanent states.
When you fight a feeling, it stays trapped inside.
When you numb it, it goes quiet only to return later.
But when you allow an emotion to be fully felt,
without judgment or escape,
the body understands that it is safe to release it.
Sadness softens.
Anger loses its grip.
Fear passes through.
This is how emotions complete their natural cycle — by being felt, honored, and gently let go.🌿

01/07/2026

🎄 𝗠𝗲𝗿𝗿𝘆 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗯𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆!

"Our emotions are meant to be felt. Even the hard ones. It's okay to feel what you need to feel."

01/07/2026

When early connection felt unsafe or unreliable—when we were ignored, unseen, or chronically misunderstood—anger may have become one of the ways we protected ourselves.

What may look like “rage” on the surface often points to something much more tender underneath: a longing to be met, to matter, to feel connected.

For people healing from the effects of developmental trauma, anger is often less about hostility and more about heartbreak.

In NARM, we don’t pathologize anger. We get curious about what it’s organizing around—the unmet needs, early pain, and patterns of disconnection that have shaped someone’s relationship with themselves and others.

10/02/2025

Contact with a supportive, safe attachment figure "tranquilizes the nervous system" Schore, 1994 p 224)