Jake White Healing LLC

10/20/2026

I have been looking at my life a little bit differently. I am starting to see the ways life is engaging with me and inviting me to engage.

I have recently been coaching a U9 soccer team. The boys on the team are pretty wild and rambunctious. I often feel a little bit anxious on the field. Soccer balls are flying around, kids are lying on the grass, and they are grabbing and pushing each other.

Sometimes, it is really important for me to put aside the need to control and meet them where they are.

In one situation, we all put our hands together to break out for the day. The boys were grabbing each other’s hands and trying to be the one on top. Others were pushing all of our hands toward the ground. This spiked my anxiety a little, and I felt tense and tight. I wanted to say, “Can’t we just put our hands together without acting crazy?” I realized that I was starting to try to control the situation and was about to correct them.

Instead, I started trying to put my hands on top of theirs, and it became a game. One of the boys looked me in the eyes and said, “You stepped on my foot in practice, and I said to all the boys, ‘I bet when we break out of practice, I can stomp on all of your feet.’” We quickly broke out, and I started chasing them as they ran around screaming and laughing.

This moment was special because I took a moment to listen to their nervous systems. I let them lead me for a second, and I responded to them with a little bit of playfulness and spontaneity. I felt a sense of playfulness, excitement, laughter, and closeness.

This moment soothed my anxiety, and I felt more settled and calm throughout my body. This moment was an example of letting life engage with me. It was about letting these little nervous systems tell me how to respond in the moment.

I think life wants me to find more playfulness, spontaneity, and connection.

10/19/2026

10/16/2026

Recently I have been thinking a lot about authenticity and honesty. I remember when I was growing up I loved the barn yard because it was a place where we could cuss, throw hats on the ground, and get mad at a cow that tried to run us over. It was a place where I saw my dad feel really free to express his feelings. I also saw a calmer part of my father as well. He would tell me to sit still in order to let a cow pass or asked me to quiet down when I was causing a mother cow to become anxious.

The barn yard was not clean, it was not pretty, and it was not orderly. It was however really honest and authentic. I think I gravitated toward healing environments because it’s not necessarily a place of order or perfection. Healing environments are pretty messy, but they are also authentic.

For example in a somatic experiencing session I might remember a moment of rejection with my Grandfather. I may recall how his face changed and he became strict and stern. I may notice how my body feels hot, I feel tearful, and my heart sinks and drops in my chest.

My somatic experiencing therapist may help me to notice these feelings and provide a safe place for my body to move through a visceral response of rejection. The therapist is giving me space to process and helping me to allow my body to work through activation.

This moment is not very pretty or orderly. It’s real, authentic, uncomfortable, and connected to a visceral experience of my body.

While my nervous system registers the discomfort it also recognizes the authenticity of my bodies response. I may feel lightened, flow, movement, and freedom as my nervous system finds more room to express. I know that these moment of freedom are also linked to my childhood and the authentic space where it was okay to be messy, raw, and disorganized.

Maybe capacity comes through the raw authentic experience of life.

10/13/2026

Regulation does not have to be complicated. Sometimes it’s just feeling a bodily sensation while also being present in our environment. I have navigated some really challenging feelings by noticing the fear in my body while staying oriented to my environment.

Orienting is one of the practices that I utilize the most in my practice to help clients. It’s really simple and it works.

10/12/2026

Remember that the felt sensation of your body is connected to existing and belonging. When we pay attention to our body we are giving space for our feelings, emotions, sensations, and thoughts. It’s possible that the nervous system is always pushing us to grow more capacity for our human experience.

Feeling stress, connection, overwhelm, happy, settled, or fearful are all expressions of existence. Capacity is having more room for our sensation in our body. Capacity creates more room to exist in this moment in a way that is present and grounded.

There is nothing more authentic than our physical expression of life.

10/08/2026

If we are not paying attention to these signals in the body we are missing so much vital information that the nervous system is communicating.

I actually look at the expression of the nervous system as a form of communication. The body is sending signals of what needs to happen in order to release, complete, and process stress.

The body is actually much more sophisticated and intelligent than our cognitive thought processes. For example the nervous system knows that quickly putting out a hand is a way to protect ourselves and a way to express a sympathetic reaction through the arms and hands. The nervous system knows that when we are given space to feel anger we may begin to feel lighter in the chest, lungs, and heart. There are these innate ways that the nervous system releases stress. It might be a shaking feeling, heat, movement, emotion, or tightness that is processed through the body. The nervous is designed to process the physical and emotional patterns that may linger from past events.

I find it so important to pay attention to the nervous system and not overlook the subtle communication of the body. It is telling the story of the past events. When we work with the nervous system it helps us to reconnect with the body and give space to the aliveness of our sensations. Maybe the cognitive part of our thoughts can give space for these autonomic patterns. The role of our conscious brain is to meet the primitive response with awareness and curiosity.

So happy to lean into Somatic Experiencing as a tool to support a deeper awareness of my autonomic nervous system.

10/06/2026

The nervous system knows exactly what it needs in order to regulate. Through the response of the body the nervous system is constantly communicating to the environment what’s needed. When we receive what we need the nervous system will recognize this safety and will then regulate.

For example I may notice someone bent over and holding their head in their hands. I might walk up next to them and ask if they are okay. The pulling in of their posture, tears, and looking downward are signals that are sent to my nervous system.

They may say to me that they are not okay and that they are overwhelmed. I might then get on my knees and ask if I could simply sit next to them. They might then raise their head and open up their posture.

They might recognize that they feel calmer and they might be able to communicate what they are going through with me. In this situation I am following their nervous system and their nervous system is communicating to me what’s needed in this moment.

I see the contraction of their posture as a way of bringing someone closer, I see their hiding of their face as a way that they may open up and reach out a hand when I am present with them, and I see their inability to speak as a way that they may need more space and time before they can engage socially.

We don’t always view the nervous and attachment from the perspective of bringing what’s needed to toward us. When we are in a healthy environment we get to watch how people respond to our body and how our body regulates when these signals are listened to and cared for.

For today watch how your nervous system communicates with the environment. Become a little more curious about how it brings what’s healthy toward you. Treat your nervous system as alive and intelligent and helping you find environments that are healthy, healing, and connected.

10/05/2026

Shame can be so damaging because it put us in a position where we are taking on the problems of the environment. For example I may have not been supported to feel my emotions when I was around people. There was a lack of emotional regulation in my environment.

Since I was left alone in my emotions I began to make my feelings wrong. As a child I don’t see myself as separate from my parents so I’m not able to individualize myself from my family. If they don’t like my emotions then I will make myself wrong or different for having big expressive feelings. I will suppress my emotions in order to feel accepted and loved.

Overtime there needs to be a more individualized self that can separate from what is unhealthy in the environment. For example I don’t like that men judged me for being sensitive. I don’t like that I was left alone when I was upset. I don’t like that people did not sit with me and help me through my emotions.

I want to feel my disgust for how I was treated and push out with my arms and shake out this energy of shame, sadness, and anger.

Then I can orient and come back to the present moment. Connecting with my breath, posture, and my feet planted on the ground.

For the next couple of weeks I’m going to push and shake things off me rather than making myself wrong or responsible.

10/01/2026

Through little bits of connection consistently the stress response can be more tolerable. If you can place a hand on it and stay with it then this supports the nervous system to start processing stress in the moment. This is what your nervous system is designed to do.

09/30/2026

Secure attachment is always present in the nervous system. When I was studying somatic experiencing I would often reference a memory when I was a child. I was bottle feeding a baby calf on our farm and I was bent over looking the calf in the eyes. I was so happy and excited about the calf and its enthusiasm for the bottle I was holding.

The practitioner that was guiding the session asked me to notice my hands creating a circular motion, my heart moving toward the calf, my eyes looking toward connection, and the softness through my body.

Later I began to learn more about attachment and realized that the noticing of these parts of my body moving toward the calf were re patterning of secure attachment.

I see secure attachment show up in so many ways in private practice. A moment where a client extends out their hand. I may ask them who they are reaching for and they say their Grandmother. We might reach out toward the environment and notice a plant or light drawing our attention. When we look at the plant there may be a long deep breath into the abdomen followed by a lighter feeling.

If these secure attachment pattern were neglected, abused, rejected, or ignored this creates an attachment wound. The protective response of the nervous system suppresses the secure attachment patterns. It’s unsafe to reach out in environments that are rejecting or harmful.

Yet the secure attachment is still wanting to move toward connection. It can be noticed when a hand extends out toward a Grandmother or when our heart softens in the memory of a calf.

In Somatic Experiencing and Developmental Attachment Repatterning experience. We work with the movement of the nervous system toward connection. We help the nervous system to feel safe again in connection as we process the protective energy that creates tension, stress, and isolation.

Your attachment system is waiting to reform secure patterns of connection and attachment.