Christoffel Sneijders Episode 228: Unresolved Psychological Data and the Body’s Memory: How Somatic Attunement Unlocks Hidden Psychological Patterns

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This is The Light Inside. I'm Jeffrey Biesecker. Integration. When we reduce complex embodied experiences to a single channel, telling ourselves to just trust your gut or simply think through it, we risk an epistemic flattening that obscures the intricate dialogue between our embodied subsystems and environment. Today we explore how somatic integration restores that dialogue by bridging the interceptive signals of the body with the brain's integrative networks, from the brainstem and anterior cingula to the medial prefrontal cortex and anterior cingular cortex. Automatic systems that assist in regulating vagal tone and heart rate variable. Through multi-channel interceptive awareness, titrated top-down and bottom-up practices such as breathwork, movement, co-regulation, and narrative integration, we uncover how fragmented or suppressed identity associations can become allies in healing. By honoring the body's nuanced language and reframing encoded somatic imprints without re-traumatization, we move toward greater emotional capacity Fluid self-regulation and more coherent sense of being. When we learn to listen to the full conversation between body and mind, not just one voice, we unlock the somatic coherence that transforms fragmented experience into emotional clarity and adaptive self-regulation. Tune in to find out how when we return to The Light Inside. When it comes to mobile service providers, many of the big-name networks leave a bad taste in your mouth, with their high-rate plans, extra fees, and hidden costs or expenses. Mint Mobile is a new flavor of mobile network service, sharing all the same reliable features of the big-name brands, yet at a fraction of the cost. I recently made the change to Mint Mobile, and I can't believe the monthly savings, allowing me to put more money in my pocket for all of the things which truly light me up inside. Making the switch to Mint Mobile is easy. Hosted on the T-Mobile 5G network, Mint gives you premium wireless service on the nation's largest 5G network with bulk savings on flexible plan options. Mint offers three, six, and 12-month plans, and the more months you buy, the more you save. Plus, you can keep your current number or change to a new one if you like, and all of your contacts, apps, and photos will seamlessly and effortlessly follow you to your new low-cost Mint provider. Did I mention the best part? You keep more money in your pocket. And with Mint's referral plan, you can rescue more friends from big wireless bills while earning up to $90 for each referral. We all know and feel the inherent challenges of our daily experiences, rich and nuanced. When viewed through the lens of somatic capacity, human behavior isn't fixed. It's a dynamic emergent process, constantly shaped by the intricate interplay between our neural, emotional, and bodily systems. When these subsystems align through somatic coherence, we enter an optimal state of attunement, where our body, mind, and emotions communicate fluidly. Creating space for clarity, resilience, and adaptive connection. Imagine catching yourself in a moment of tension. Your chest tightens, your breath shortens, and instead of pushing it away, you tune in. Discovering this subtle shift is your body's invitation to integrate rather than react. In today's episode, we explore how that moment holds the key to transforming emotional noise into embodied wisdom. Today we're joined by Christoffel Snaders. He is a master certified coach, author, and founder of Three Brains Intelligence, a model integrating the head, heart, and gut to enhance decision-making and personal growth. With over 30 years of experience in coaching, psychotherapy, and leadership training, Thank you for joining us today, Christoffel. I'm excited to have this conversation.

undefined: That makes two of us, Jeffrey, because as you said, in the pre-talk, we already communicated via LinkedIn and shared ideas and all those kinds of things. So then see each other live and talk about it and talk as an expert. I can only imagine that all your listeners will be so extremely happy to get all kinds of beautiful insights.

: You have such a wonderful way of connecting with others, and I'm just so excited we could share that today as we explore some of these insights together. As we lean in today, I'm excited to explore how unresolved cognitive, emotional, and somatic patterns shape our perception, intuition, and our relational dynamics, and how those factors interplay with our ability to create somatic coherence, and emotional regulation. So with that in mind, could you share with us, Christofel, a brief history of what sparked your curiosity in understanding our embodied processes and the dynamic systems that support them?

undefined: Beautiful question. Pretty Personal and business orientation. Say personal, I got after 10 years working in leadership training and behavioral coaching, I got a burnout and thought if I'm an expert in behavioral training and helping people and I got a burnout, I'm missing something. Hence the somatic part came in. And that is my personal story. And from that, even 10 years ago when I got a divorce, I again crashed down and thought, okay, I'm still missing something. And so all the things I learned were not enough. From the professional standpoint, I always was curious, but we taught so many times the subconscious mind. You know that iceberg and underneath the iceberg is this 95% that is directing our life. And you see that in the slides, beliefs, values, a whole bunch of things. And I always ask all the people who have followed courses with or trainings with it, where's the subconscious mind located? Because if we know where it is, or what it is exactly, we can solve it. I once studied when I was young, engineering, and you cannot solve a leak if you don't know where it's leaking. And so the logical mind says, how can you solve a subconscious mind if you don't know where the subconscious mind is or how to address it? So those two things sparkly in this whole research of, now you could say, of the last 30 or maybe 20 years after burnout, really, okay, what is now making us tick? And much more what you already said, the cognitive and the somatic part, how can they be integrated?

: That journey to me is so inspiring as we start to witness how those complexities come together and why those nuances start to matter. From a perspective of integrated dynamic awareness, human behavior is shaped by complex systems, yet we often oversimplify them. For instance, relaying all of our unconscious processes merely to the mind or brain. Yet, as a contrast to that, we can illustratively see where things like neural imprinting, our gut interactions, the hypothalamus axis coming into play there with the hypothalamus, adrenal, and pituitary axis. We see all of this web of our embodied state. You know, right down to me, I feel it's really integral we point out how sometimes we even blur that paradox where we sometimes relegate the brain and body is separate, yet is the head not a part of the body?

undefined: It's not totally true, but once somebody said, Chris, but the head is always in charge. And I said, can I do a test with you physically? What are you going to do? I said, we just do the knee jerk reaction. So I hit you just underneath your knee and your foot will jump up. Then explain to me which part of your body is now in charge. And the person was totally stupefied. Because as you probably know, when a brain cell or neuron goes down, it always hits a motor neuron and that does the last part to the muscle. That motor neuron can act actually independently, as the knee-jerk reaction shows. I said, so we don't need actually the brain to do this. I said, so, and it's just a simplification of the truth that shows already the body can make a decision without anything that the head has to be included. And I know the person really was silent for five minutes, so I'm… Oh, wow. Of course, it's simplification, but it shows actually that what we find is so totally normal that some things will happen. It's the same if you put your hand on a hot stove and don't do it at home, as people all know, your hands will go back even before that your head actually knows. Research shows that the body can respond for that the head actually knows. Tippett did already research in the 60s, but it's so that the muscle actually got already energized half a second before that actually there was an awareness of the action. And that research is done over and over again. So in that part, we know already there's more to us and our behavior than just a beautiful, amazing thing in between our ears. So what is amazing, because we both can agree it's amazing, 100,000 million brain cells, 5 to 10,000 connections each, 20% of your energy. So it's amazing, but it's not everything.

: So that, to me, points beautifully how De Tomasio pointed out how those behaviors are dynamic and emergent and statistically or relatively variable based on context and situational awareness or situational nuance. Yet, with that in mind, as therapists and clients alike, again, we often oversimplify complex processes into a singular explanatory frame. For instance, it's just in your head. It's just breathing through it. You know, we hear some of this reductivism in our culture, which itself becomes a defense. against the complexity. So looking at that nuance today, somatic integration is essentially our ability to regulate emotions and maintain a shared cohesive sense of co-regulation in our relational interactions. Christoffel, in this regard, How might epistemic flattening or oversimplification reduce this multifaceted experience into one explanatory channel? And how might that risk dysregulation and inhibiting our own adaptive somatic integration, not only as a client, but within a therapeutic context?

undefined: Beautiful question for two points. For a client, just imagine it said that trauma is just in your head, Jeffrey, and you go to psychiatrists, psychologists, you work on your head, you do all the mindfulness, all the kind of stuff, and it doesn't solve. Then at one moment, you're going to blame yourself. I cannot do that. Other people can. Maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I'm not working hard enough. So self-blame is a lot of times then a result for the patient. They think I'm not doing it good enough because I get all this advice and I don't, whatever, I'm messing up. For the therapist, it's also extremely frustrating, because you don't see, say, progress in one moment. As already a long time ago, Peter Levine, who wrote a book about, say, really traumatic training, and is actually the source for Bessel van Gogh's When the Body Keeps the Score, already said, trauma can be soft in the head, but stays in the body. And you see that, actually, when you look at war veterans or people who have really traumatic effect, that the body has also, say, issues. It's still stiff. it has strange twitches and it does things by itself without that the head can control it. And that's actually when the people get stuck in a trauma that the body can freeze. We all know the fight fault, flight, fight, freeze fault. Think that if you really freeze or fault, then the body actually locks it in, what they call actually muscle lock. So a stiffness can create that. That stiffness you can massage the person until he's, now doesn't have a skin anymore, so much can you massage him. It does not mean it will solve because the person has to do something else with it. That's not only massaging the muscles, but actually what we now come aware the last years, although kineology already said it 20 years ago, that the fascia is extremely important. And besides the three brains, head, heart, gut, that the fascia is something like a huge trigger point access to the brains connecting with the memory. And we talked about it, and I still remember in my first lesson of kineology, I got that, and they said, you have a nerve? It releases the neurotransmitter P that stays in the fascia, that makes the fascia a little bit stiff, and it becomes, you can say, a sore point or a stiff point. Push on that point, and it will trigger, say, the memory. It goes to the heart or the gut, and it will trigger a memory. Kineology already knows that 20 years. Or maybe 30 years, maybe 40 years. I actually now don't know, because I don't like to make them discredit. So I don't really know that. Now, for the therapy part, it is important, and I know you are extremely in charge of it. I love that. It's a holistic approach. God or evolution did not give us 100 billion body cells. if they would not have really a function to work with each other. And even Bruce Lipton, to finish it, already came aware in his book, The Biology of Beliefs, that every cell has receptors, and the receptors connect with the environment, and when the environment does something, the cell will start actually doing something, not as a memory-based system. It does an action based on the environment. Now, if every cell could make an action based on what they perceive in the environment, then how can our beautiful head be in charge of 100 billion body cells. Now, I don't know how it's with you, Jeffrey, but I have an issue with believing that.

: We won't tackle the belief angle today. From an illustrative point, as we start to look at our own biology, we probably, or inherently, statistically speaking, we might all have a very limited knowledge of that biology. And we're now starting to tiptoe up to new nuance, new understanding. Everything from, we often relegate the nervous system to one system of the body. Yet, we can see von Economo neurons in the salience network that connect between the prefrontal, the amygdala, the insular cortex, the medial cortex, that start to create these neural responses and patterns, these neural triggers. We can see in the base of the brainstem, afferent and efferent neurons that modulate and regulate inflow and outflow of top-down, bottom-up, what we label top-down, bottom-up, which if we really study is more a dynamic kind of circular feedback loop rather than linear. throughout our body. We're processing multiple channels. Yet, what do we want to do? As we reach that uncertainty, we become challenged in our safety. That certainty triggers fear, anxiety, all these complex cavalcades of feedback that then pushes us into that shutdown mode where we want to resist, we want to avoid, we want to deflect. Yet, that's all interconnected through the gut, the brain, the heart, heart rate variable coming in there. modulating where that stress response goes based on our heart rate. So are we ever truly centered in any one of the processes goes back to that nuance you're describing. How do you put your thumbprint on which one in target that is the one in any given moment? Because so much of it happens at a lightning quick speed.

undefined: It's beautiful. And the beauty is, I think we know more of the moon than we know of our own body. Very often. But if you go to research and you ask how many body cells are really in our body, there is no real answer because our body cells or all our cells have different kinds of sizes. So it's actually an estimation that we have 100 billion body cells. When you talk about the replacement of the cells, your inlining of your gut replaces every three days. your bone cells probably every 30 years, it is all say somewhere. But if you ask how would they do it exactly, people become silent. How does a bone cell, when it dies, how does it get replaced, what's in the bone? And then you see a lot of people become more silent. And although we know a lot, we also don't know a lot. Because how can actually then, not every cell is connected with the nerve, as we know, because the nerve ends in the fascia. So somewhere the communicators are, okay, this one has to go out, this one has to come in. We know, say, the basic functions of us. And that part, Pageto, is true. 20% of the knowledge solves 80% of the issues. But the other 80%, that is for the last 20%, is extremely, extremely difficult. And I assume that we still need a lot of decades to really get that insight, what is real happening. Because if you know, you talk about neurotransmitters, just open research a week later, and there's another kind of connection found. Ten years ago, if you had said, you know, your gut microbes can actually signal a nerve has to be created from the gut to the head or make a connection, people would have said, you're crazy. Now it's proven that it's true that a gut microbe actually can make that action. 30 years ago, when they were in the DNA, they said, oh, 97% of our DNA is junk DNA. Now they come over here, oh, no, no, no, no, there's no junk DNA. So in that part, we don't know, but as a therapist, for me, the good thing is we don't have to know how every cell is responding to get, say, the basic ideas or issues solved with clients. As long as we see it, say, in a holistic issue, we can come over here because the beauty is that every belief we make, every trauma experience or every experience we have, somewhere gets stored in a memory system. Now, as you know, I love the three brains concept because we have three brains scientifically proven, 500 million in the gut, 100,000 in the heart, 100,000 million in the head, and they have memories. Every heart transplant already changes actually the characteristics of the person who get the heart transplant. So memories get transplanted. So all the proof is there. If you think about how we make decisions based on our beliefs and experiences, quote, quote, we can make life easier as a therapist and for a client. But to really come aware of what is really happening, that takes a lot of working things. Because before you know, and now probably you know, quantum biology is getting hot. And if you dive into quantum biology, everything we now discussed, actually, Jeffrey, is actually almost falling apart again. Because then in quantum biology, there is so much influence from the energy fields around us that also has an effect on us. And then it just takes a couple of years and actually then past life or those kinds of things will be proven based on quantum biology. And if that happens, because we're all energy, now I think then the whole theoretical world can say, okay, let's start at start again. And you don't get any points in monopoly of being at start again.

: Let's look at that quantum biology and what we know about quantum theory, or what we might not know about quantum theory. Not everything is an energetic reaction, or if it is, there are, again, subtle nuances. Is it a biochemical? Is it a mechanical energy? Is it an electrical-based energy? They all operate on different different theories, yet what can we do? We try to flatten it down to the context of one vibration or one frequency. Which one are you targeting again? Are we going back to that infinitesimal number, or do we smash that down with epistemic flattening again? Is everything quantum energy? Quantum, we've witnessed if you truly dive into quantum principle, how quantum crumbles beyond the micro level of existence. And once we move into the macro framing, those dynamics themselves fall apart. We can't measure them the same because the interactions become different. So there again, that epistemic flattening, we often put the horse between the cart, we jump the gate, we get ahead and say, well, it's all energy. Well, it is all energy, but which energy, in which context, under which situations, and based on what principles or constructs? There again, that nuance brings a different filter in that sometimes we tiptoe into that unconscious, subconscious domain that simply we start confabulating and constructing stories about what's really going on.

undefined: It is beautiful what you said, because the heart has biochemical, say, pressure. It has, of course, nerve system, electric energy it sends out by every heartbeat. Then we have, say, also just the energy from the field around us. We have the temperature. We have so many parameters that you could almost ask who is now important, who is less important, and what's the sequence between all of those. And the beauty is, and I did it two weeks ago, three weeks ago at the retreat of my three-branch master training in the mountains of Madrid. really a rustic place, almost no Wi-Fi, no cars, only trees, etc. And so there was a surrounding that actually had a different kind of energy field than if you do it in the center of Madrid. And the beauty is if you then see people already behaving differently, because I saw some of them in Madrid, and I saw them the next day in the mountains of Madrid. Without doing anything, you already see change. So just imagine if you work with a client in the middle of Madrid, or you work with a client, say, in the mountains of Madrid, you could already have a different outcome, even if you do exactly the same, just based on the environment. So to flatten, say, what you say, to flatten it is extremely hard. You miss a lot of parameters that could influence the whole outcome of the client.

: Even in that context, you know, what factors are we aware of? What unconscious and subconscious factors come into play? how might the dynamic itself change expectancy bias comes in if we're expecting different results or we're expecting a different experience sometimes that's where we begin to notice a difference or we even open and soften to a difference because what are we doing we're preparing that field of play Now, that field of play, I'm leaving it nuanced today. I'm not going to go into energetics. I'm not going to dissect that because we've already divested a little bit from where I think we may have gone or started to go today. So that nuance again is so often unconsciously we're moving into default programming to find a quick answer, which is neither good nor bad. Sometimes it serves us, sometimes it becomes inhibitive or even self-sabotaging. We have an infinite number of decisions we're making every day, so some of those have to move offline or we're going to constantly be in that overwhelmed, hyper-vigilated, hyper-stimulated, over-functioning state to where none of our energy is going to matter because it's all going to be spent trying to sort it out.

undefined: Yes, you're so right. And I saw it happening, say, in that retreat. And we were doing, say, a demonstration, then we do an exercise, and I would be working with one of them, and I said, where do you like to sit? So I always ask the client, where do you like to sit? And he said, oh, logical, it would make sense to stay in this room, where we did the training. I said, okay, so logically, you say it stays in the room. Say, let's just accept the effect of placebo. So based on placebo, Where do you really sense that it would be the best environment for you? Placebo there. Oh, then better than going outside because we have more fresh air. Okay, that was step one. I said, just imagine that you would feel supported, say, by nature around us. Where would you like to sit? Oh, then we have to go to the tree. I said, okay, and just imagine that for you, you would get the best outcome. Where would you like to sit then? Because you're there, the tree, but there are more trees. And just by guiding them through three brains where they're connecting this placebo, we moved from, say, the training room to first outside, then to a tree, then actually to another tree, next to, say, some nice chairs. Just by doing that, we influenced actually the outcome of the whole process. And if you don't do that as a therapist, if you don't stack just like that, and we didn't do anything else, we didn't talk about energy, then of course I asked, okay, just take off your shoes so we could ground. I talk about energy and I said, okay, if you sit, maybe the first time you can sit straight, so actually you can, your spine, actually all your vertebrae have space, so your spine fluid can move. All your nerve systems are at least as much as free in between the vertebrae. And if you start breathing, also do you using the diaphragm and putting all those little things in there, you see step-by-step and a change, say in a person. And we didn't do anything up to then, just calibrating all the different parameters you just discussed. And normally, when we work with people, I took, say, 15 minutes for the whole process. And then we asked the first question, what do we actually have to work on? But the first 15 minutes, you really observed, say, already a change in the muscle system, in, say, in the blood flow, in the skin, in the breathing, in the breathing of the person. So all those little steps already made a difference. So when you think about, say, let's make it simple, I would say, no, don't make it simple. Use the parameters we know to work with your client. And it makes such a difference, and also take time for it.

: So reeling back a little bit, when one embodied decision system or somatic system is dominant, coherence collapses. We're over-reliant, and we throw things out of bounds. So our dynamic subsystems become disintegrated. I'll spit that out today. Instead of collaborating as a cohesive super system, it's all designed to call forward when that role or task is needed. So with that in mind, what patterns, Christopher, Christopher, my pattern of speech is struggling today. I'm going to acknowledge that. So what patterns do you observe when clients rely exclusively on any one internal subsystem and how does restoring cross-system dialogue shift between behavioral flexibility?

undefined: That's a good take. I once made it simple for myself. And I thought, you know, let's make a first overview of what it could be. And I know that by simplification, you put a lot of things out. But what is running most of our people, and I put it in the head, heart and gut, because it makes it also doable. And the head is all for logic. So where are your logical problems?

: Is logic all in the head? That's another thing I'm going to challenge you on. Is logic all in the head? What intuitive processes might come into play there?

undefined: Okay, why I say logic is in the head? Because the head, that sort of beautiful thing in between our ears, is the only part of the body that knows cause and effect because it knows time.

: So is that the only influential factor? Intuitive knowledge come into play there in summary. Is there context and nuance?

undefined: When I use the word logic, as I look in the semantics, logic is, for me, you make a decision based on a cause and effect analysis. It's logical to use your right foot after you use your left foot. That is a cause and effect analysis. When you look, say, in the instinctual or emotional logic… What causal factors have we removed if we only put it in the head?

: If we only put it in a prefrontal cortex frame there, if that's our subcontext, that the prefrontal is the only thing that's processing that. Where does sensory perception go?

undefined: You just counted that and thrown it offline, correct? Actually not, because when you take that all offline, so if you really put the prefrontal cortex in there and say the part in between the two hemispheres where also awareness is located, you stick actually in a cause and effect analysis, what is the next step to do? Let's do a good prediction.

: So you've taken the salience network offline now in the amygdala, in the insular cortex, that also processes the relevancy of that sensory perception and those perceptual ranges. Things like your empathy, monitor through that subsystem, has a context and it matters.

undefined: So when I talk, say, really about the head brain, in that part, I worry about the gray matter in the neocortex, not about the limbic brain, because then you could have a discussion where it's actually emotions coming from. According to Lisa Barrett Feldman, emotions are created. But having said that, if you only look, say, in the neocortex, it only thinks about what is actually, in my words, a logical step two based on prediction.

: So active forecasting comes into play, and those factors also draw throughout your somatic subsystems.

undefined: Now, the forecasting for the heart and the gut is actually in the moment. You ask your dog, shall we walk in half an hour? And it starts already running to the door because half an hour does not conceptualize it. We need, say, our neocortex to conceptualize time. That is, let's say, that's a proven fact. So when you take out, say, the limbic brain and the brain stem and all this kind of stuff, you only stay with almost like an Excel sheet of decisions. There's no, then almost where we predict, okay, is this what somebody likes or not likes based on statistics instead of based on emotions or feelings. The guilt feeling is not in there. So when you connect the limbic brain and the limbic brain is connected, there's the heart, there's the gut. Of course, the amygdala sparks up based on heart coherence. The heart, after every boom, boom, six milliseconds later, the amygdala sparks up, sends out, say, the action, so the limbic brain gets activated. So if you include those, then you get, say, a connection part, because the heart is also able to release oxytocin. The heart can sense, actually, people around it. So then, if you add the heart in it, you get, say, a social awareness. How does it affect other people? If you take the head off and you only take the heart in there, it only thinks about other people, but not about what is the cause and effect. And so if you think about patterns that you could see, when the head is more dominant, the neocortex, then you can see patterns of perfectionism. You can see patterns of analyzing of paralysis. You can see, say, that people like to follow all the rules to find their solutions. You like to see that people disconnect, which you actually said, from all the emotional factors and become just a plain observer. And they don't interact with emotions. When the heart is more in charge, then you see, say, patterns of pleasing.

: There again, what context is coming into play? Do you discount what's being triggered internally?

undefined: Now, based on what HeartMath researched, and also Lynne McTaggart shows in the intention experiment, the heart can decide by itself. And that is also a definition of a brain. A brain is a definition that has memories and it can make independent decisions based on the memory it has. It can take the whole context in play, but the primary is on the memory system.

: Where might a authority bias come into play there as one engages with intellectual humility? To contrast that, we look at Anil Seth's 2013 work that might predate, it might be outdated by now. But work on interceptive inference highlights that top-down dominance increases predictive error or dysregulation. We're looking at how, then, some of those stored narratives come into play, for example. Salience and narrative are deeply intertwined through that von Economo neuron in the central nervous system from what I've studied. But from those studies or that exploration, narrative plays a significant role in shaping where the stimulatory memory has been held, where those adaptive logics and reasoning come in, where belief systems interplay is another pivotal area. And it's a very dynamic, contextually based relationship, based on whatever factor is currently dominant in opposed or in contrast with that effective forecasting to what we've stored and experienced in the past. So there again, we're illustrating those gray areas. Is the heart truly dominant? Does the other come into play?

undefined: We are one system, so we cannot say one is active and the other ones are dead, because that means that we have a dead head or dead arm or whatever. So we're all interconnected. Let's make that clear. So when I say head dominant is more, it is say in the decision making, the one who, in my words, has the loudest voice. So when you think about heart transplants, and there are many examples, then the heart has a memory and actually starts influencing the whole system in following those habits, patterns, or even memory, or even beliefs. So then the heart is actually in charge. It doesn't mean it's always in charge, but you see patterns happening from the heart when the heart is more dominant. So that's what I mean. The same if the gut is more dominant, you see that also some things will more be in play when the gut, where our immune system mostly is stored, is extremely a me-oriented, you could say organs or system of organs in our body. And it likes to be, say, in charge, it likes to push on, it can release all the cortisol and testosterone as it needs. from the gut system, from the adrenal glands and also from the adrenal glands, as Oestrogen released and Testosterone, so it can release all that it needs actually to stay active. So when people are somewhere more trained, you could say, to listen to their gut, you see different kind of patterns stepping in in people. And it doesn't mean the other ones are not available, only you see a lot of times they are silent or people don't listen to them. The same And if you know what I mean was that if we now are just talking and we're in a beautiful talk we have, a lot of our energy goes actually to our head to listen to each other, to think about what is Jeffrey now saying? How should I respond on that? What is his question? So bring a lot of energy to the head. So if you then ask me, hey, Chris, do you feel your feet on the floor? Only after you ask that, I think, oh yeah, I have my feet on the floor. We don't take attention of that. On the other hand, I'm also a fire walker. Consciously. Subconsciously and unconsciously we're still aware of it. And I say actually on that morning the whole system makes a decision. This is more important now in this moment. Say you walk on coals or on glass, what I also teach people to do, if you're a fire walker, then your awareness is totally also in your feet, especially if you walk on glass. And then this one is almost not in charge because a lot of times people do this with their eyes closed. So they really can have a sensory system in their feet. How do you place their feet? And then actually their body is in charge.

: Going back to Seth and that exploration of interceptive inference, the study… was illustrated to highlight how predictive processing shows cognition as a probabilistic, I'll spit that out, probabilistic inference system. It's measuring probabilities and making assumptions largely. And there again, even some of the big words we use to describe things inhibit us from consciously engaging their meaning because they're difficult to spit out. Does that trigger? an implicit response to where now I'm inherently monitoring whether or not somebody might judge how I pronounce the word or do I regulate and say well I made an error in predicting how I pronounce that word and now I'm going to infer a different meaning on it and create a new probability because now I'm not worried so much about if I screw it up somebody's going to judge me they're going to judge it's an automatic process we make afferent predictions and we make arousal assumptions automatically, so it's a form of judgment.

undefined: It's interesting that you say that. One, I'm dyslectic. Secondly, I'm not native English, so I don't mind if I sometimes mispronounce anything. But the question is, if you think about judgment, where do we feel judged? Because most times we feel judged in that moment as being rejected, being not good enough. And that's a heart-brain connection. As I say, I made the excuse for myself, I'm dyslectic, I'm not native English. I said, by the way, I have a Dutch accent, so some pronunciations even don't come through my lips. So based on all the, quote, quote, excuses I made, my heart doesn't feel, say, judged if somebody says, what are you saying now? So actually, my heart-based judgment is not in place. And I feel confident enough, and confidence is also in the gut, from, OK, it's OK. I don't worry. Only my head could say, hey, now you mispronounced something, Chris. Do you think that the listeners now know what you said because you really made from five syllables three syllables? So maybe it's useful to re-say it and then use really a slow pace of talking and use all the five syllables. So that can also be, say, then a logical interruption from, hey, maybe the listener doesn't understand what I'm saying. And that's a logical process. So when we even look at this simple example, a lot of interactions in our own belief system and body are already in play. Because the question is then, when you or I mispronounce something, where do we notice it actually in our body? And if you think about it, you come aware in your head, If you feel a lot of judgment by other people, you could feel it in your heart, and you could feel, say, insecure, and you could feel it in your gut system. So it makes it sometimes more complex when we just have a simple sentence like that. It's not now the idea, let's mispronounce five times the comma where we feel it, because then I think the listeners are like, wow, there's really a comic show happening here. But it is rather interesting, where do you feel when something happens? Already you notice it actually, when I say feel, the head doesn't feel. Already you notice it actually in your whole system, when something is not going as you expected that it would go.

: So there again, looking at that, we can often pinpoint or highlight a biased perception of a specific sensation based on any number of subconscious tells, or implicit inferred triggers. We might notice more the anxiety because we're consciously aware of that aroused state because of a past traumatic experience of judgment, a past traumatic experience in childhood that had that internal wound attached to it. yet we don't notice some of the other arousal states. We might attribute that gnawing sensation in the gut to internal knowing, yet that internal knowing might be mirroring the implicit memory from the past. And it's not necessarily what we know based on arousal in the present, but it's based more so on where we're judging and evaluating the experience in the past, triggering what we might label as false intuition or misintuition.

undefined: That's a good point. Let's make it simple for a moment. We all are living systems, human beings, and the biggest fear we have is physical survival or social survival. And actually they're both connected with survival. If as a baby you don't get care of your parents, you die. If you just hit a car while the car is driving 80, you also die. And so, simply, when we become aware of, say, a mispronunciation or a mistake we make, based on a past experience or a belief, that trigger is the strongest based on a previous, actually, we could say, survival threat. So it makes logically sense that this one is then, on this moment, the loudest. And if a therapist, that's the one maybe you should work on this one, because this one is over screaming what you try to say, all the other sensations you have in your body you're maybe not aware of. The moment we can release, say, that most aware sensation, we allow other sensations to come up. And the same in meditation, when you do meditation like to still the head, on that moment when we get stillness, a lot of other sensations come in place. That's actually what we once said in simplification. It's almost like an onion. You just peel the layers up to what's happening. And we have to start somewhere. So sometimes simplification is needed to start working as a client. Does that mean simplification is the answer? But taking everything in context also sometimes makes it hard. What is the first step to take?

: So here's a for instance, as therapeutic counselors or anyone working within a helper role, we'll call it a helper role today. We're going to use a generalization in that context. Certainty can become epistemic rigidity, where we're certain we understand what that causal factor is. An unconscious loop that mirrors the client's own defense sometimes surfaces or where we project our own unconscious data on others. For instance, here's a great framing I just picked up from a somatic counselor by the name of Esther Goldstein and looking at how as clinicians, We can remove our own preconceptions sometimes to notice certain perceptual cues. Rapid eye movement or eye deflection being one. Where we can start to possibly forecast that a client might be dissociating or they might be searching for access recall. Two different states. as we consciously process. I'm very guilty of this. I've noticed it myself after where I'll look around. It's not necessarily if I deeply reflect the trigger coming into play. I also do that when I'm searching for a bigger concept or something that does access either that salient memory, that prefrontal cortex, or sometimes it is. searching for that emotional reaction or emotional connection, for instance, that might create our bonded empathy and co-regulation with another. So going back and researching that now, that cue alone, we might start to mis-evaluate and mis-assign arousal and say, well, he deflected, he automatically dissociated, it was automatically a trauma response. which Esther then reflected back that it's simply a window to remain curious and question. Once the client's attuned, once the client is in a safe space, once the client is in that titrated, vulnerable mode of capacity, to then say, what might you have been searching to connect with? What might have surfaced? What somatic sensations come up? And how might that point us to a particular pattern or a particular way we interacted with that context?

undefined: You're so right. As you know, I'm also a clinical hypnotherapist, psychotherapist, and one of the great therapists of the last century was Milton Erickson, a psychiatrist, hypnotherapist. And I love one of his teachings. One of his famous schools asked him, his name was Rossi, Mr. Milton Erickson, what is the most important thing for amazing therapy? And Milton Erickson, partly paralyzed from having polio when he was 16 or 17, was sitting like this and said, three things. So Rossi took his notepad and started to write. And I heard it from him. He said, Mr. Ilgtsen, I'm here. And Mr. Ericsson said, observe. Observe. What's the second thing, Mr. Ericsson? Observe. OK, observe. And the third one? Observe. And Rossi wrote down three, Mr. Ikson has written three times observe. How come? He said, because the moment you start doing interpretation, actually you're missing all the clues. And now coming to what you just said, it's so important that as a therapist, we should observe, hey, I see your eyes moving left and right. What's happening? An observation is something else. Hey, you see your eyes moving left and right. Are you searching for something in your mind? Because that's an interpretation I do. It's one of the hardest things. And what I see as I also train coaches see happening so many times to stay in observation is almost impossible for people. But also, of course, it's if we do a judgment, if you think about Daniel Kahneman's system one and two thinking system one, is actually less energy because your three brains take 40% of your daily energy. So if you do an assumption, a judgment, it takes less energy. What is this, Jeffrey? You know it's a glass. Boom. You don't have to think about it. No energy is wasted. The moment you start observing it, let me see, Chris. It's something like 10 centimeters high. It has a diameter of something 8 centimeters. It doesn't have any content in it. The total observation, it takes a massive amount of energy. So biologically, it makes sense that we do judgments because it preserves energy. Like also Lisa Barrett-Feldman says, we have a body-built budget, how much energy we can spend. So it makes totally sense only for therapists and clinicians and for coaches, we need to stay in high energy mode of observation without putting any judgment or any call on it and just say, hey, I see you looking to the left. Jeffrey, you're thinking, of course, for me, it's the right. I see you looking at the left. What's happening? And maybe nothing happening. You just say, no, we're just moving because I see something. I see my eye. And that moment, that's what she said, you keep yourself curious as a therapist. And that's actually what's happening, because the moment you also make people aware of what's happening, then when we started, actually, we talk about the integration of cognitive and somatic, you make people also aware of the somatic actions they do. And what is maybe connected with the issue was, as we know, a lot of somatic actions or behaviors are connected with an issue, already Jung spoke about that. from constellations to other kinds of therapy forces. Change the body pose. Now go to Anthony Robbins. He says, change your body, change your mindset. And it is true. If you think about the book, there's a book, Physical Intelligence. If you do the winner's pose and the winner's pose is Actually, neurotransmitters and hormones are released in your body, which makes a totally different kind of set. As soon as you say this, it's extremely hard to be depressed just by putting your head up and putting your arms up. So our bodies can actually have a massive influence on us. So as a therapist, clinician, what you said, and you cannot be more right. Observation, observation, observation. Hey, I see you stretching your arms. I see you looking to the left up. Jeffrey, what's happening in your beautiful mind and body? Presently?

: I'm thinking forward and tuning out. That's what, honestly, right now, I just, I was thinking forward tuning out, and I'm taking out of my familiarity zone with where I intended on going with this. So yeah, I'm having to logically look at that. I'm also having to look at that from a somatic standpoint.

undefined: It's gonna be honest.

: I don't know because it was offline part of it was looking to okay I'm straying here and now I'm predicting forward and I was very much tuning out from my tuning into you witnessing you Observing where you were going with it because now what am I doing? I'm in a rumination cycle if I'm to clinically dissect that to get back to where that part of me There was an organization and manager part in there that comes in and says, wait, I'm managing this conversation. I want this to go in a predictable certainty. So I do validate some aspect of my identity. I have to willingly be open to acknowledge that no matter what somatic cue come up. I didn't notice in that moment any somatic cues. They were tuned out. So I was disembodied from them. But I know from a theory now, and I'm not going to stigmatize the theory because that knowing is also relevant, that inherently it was a part of a narrative construct. There was that manager part that was coming in, the firefighter part from internal family system comes in and says, now I'm trying to get this back in line with whatever perception I had of the conversation. to guide it. It was that need to go back and try to guide rather than riding along with you where the conversation might have taken us.

undefined: That's beautiful.

: That goes on under the hood.

undefined: Let's say if you would be an NLP therapist and say hey your eyes go left up that means you're remembering now you're now in a memory state and actually what I'm saying connecting with old memories. That would be an interpretation and I could be massively wrong by saying that.

: I could be massively wrong. I would like to say to the client… About my own state, even.

undefined: I would like to say to the client, actually, you probe somewhere through a sim in them. So, coming back to what you said and what you stated from the lady whose I lost the name… Esther Goldstein. Thank you, Esther Goldstein. Curiosity is key. Stay in that energy mode of observation and curiosity. What is happening with the client? And what is constructing in his whole system?

: So as we're building out here today, we've covered a lot of ground. I'm going to kind of go back toward our route of looking at integration and awareness. So therapy often begins from that basic structure, first and foremost, of creating that framework of psychological safety. We've all kind of acknowledged that unless we all feel psychologically safe, accepted, seen, heard, acknowledged, understood, starts with that framework of safety. Yet as practitioners, whether we're a coach or a therapist, we often get ahead of that curve of observation. I'm going to put it in that framework. We put things in a wrong order. I'm going to go ahead and acknowledge that to where we sometimes get ahead of ourselves. avoiding things like titration regulation, developing capacity with another, and inviting that safety space to where we're observing. So from that perspective of observation, what sequencing principles ensure that we align with another and connect so we can create that space without re-traumatizing or creating that rupture?

undefined: The beauty is if you say, if you make it, as I said, I have a dog, If dogs meet each other, the first thing they do is actually creating safety with each other. They're not starting right away sniffing each other's ass.

: That's exactly where my mind went.

undefined: I know. But before that, they look each other in the eyes. They move a little bit. Can we do it? Can we not do it? So they create almost a little dance, and it can take half a second or it can take 10 seconds. To create that safety, can I do this? So if you now come back to us and to make it human, it's actually the same. And it is actually paused. If you compare it with dancing, you have to start listening to the music before you start dancing, which is done if it's a foxtrot or a rumba or a jive or whatever. The same in the dance between a clinician or a coach and a client. You first have to set yourself in and say, hey, let's listen to the music. Where are you? Where am I? And just let the client also land in your office, because most times they come to your office. What is your space? So they enter actually in a new environment that is not, that doesn't feel safe. They see a chair, they see a table, they see an office, they see a computer, they see you, they see some things on the wall maybe. And they first have to somewhere go, hey, where is it? like dogs, also humans have an orienting response. So it's actually looking around, where is the best place for me to be? Dogs really listen to that instinct, we humans not. And we see a chair there and the clinician says, please sit there. And boom, we're not in charge anymore. The clinician or the coach names charge. Well, actually you could say, hey, welcome here. Just make yourself comfortable in the way you like to make comfortable. Maybe you like to see some things, maybe not. Maybe you like to change the chair, maybe you like to sit somewhere else. What would be the best for you? And I remember that also in the teachings I had say as a clinical therapist about say what they call tailoring your session. And the example was somebody came in and he said, I cannot sit still. I have to move. And the guy walked in the room for one hour. And he said, by letting him do so, you saw, say, the energy system totally shift and make it totally okay that he walked. And in one moment I asked, can I walk with you actually? It makes it more better. So they started to walk together in his office. is that by doing a tailored session to the client's needs, we create a massive safety and we could move forward. So in that part, tailoring your session to the client's needs is essential. And then actually the same as we said earlier, that is using all your sensory systems we have as a human being to come where, hey, how do we connect actually with the client? What is good and not good? And it is somatically cognitive and let's put the energy in there, connecting your three brains and therefore Okay, what is happening here? How could we connect? And the beauty is, and I did an exercise, although they were all experienced coaches, and I let them say, put them five meters apart, and then one walk, feet by feet to another. And they came over here, just say, the person who's standing still, you say stop when they enter your, say, personal zone. And you as person who walks say, Does it feel okay? Do I sense the same or do I like to move forward and not forward? And that exercise, and I assume this is a simple exercise, everybody knows it. I had an assumption. Yes, I had an assumption. Although I was curious, but I made an assumption. But I had something like, come on, they're all 20, 30 years in practice, so they know this. Maybe they know, but it doesn't mean they did. So the moment they did, they had something like, oh, wow, I come aware my personal zone is actually this. And the other person, yeah, but actually I want to take a step forward actually more because I felt good. And people can aware, hey, to connect that safety space, it is really delicate steps. And you're so right, we just blur in right away and say, hey Jeffrey, good to see you. By the way, what's your assessment in Zoom sessions? What's your topic you'd like to discuss today? And don't even give you time to breathe in and breathe out.

: We're already putting them right in that stance of I'm activated. So looking at maintaining that frame of curiosity, I'm going to try to succinctly wrap it up today with this tip or this insight. So looking at specifically trying to maintain that frame of curiosity, not only to place the client in that container, but also to keep yourself attuned to that container. What are three core tips, practices, or habits we can engage as a practitioner, coach, or helper that might facilitate that framework for a client?

undefined: The first of what he said, just the physical space. Make people aware the physical space is actually theirs. As they say in Spanish, mi casa es tu casa. My house is your house. And give them that feeling, even in Zoom. Although it's harder, but this is your space. The second one is when you start tuning in, really come aware what is happening with the client. And just observe for a moment or five or 10. People have an issue with keeping silence, but the first five seconds being silent, besides after the greetings and how do you like to make yourself comfortable, just the observation of what's happening in the client. Do you see relaxation? Not relaxation, what's happening? And those are actually the first simple steps. And what you already said, what Esther said, observation and what Milton Erickson already said 100 years ago, observation and no interpretation. Keep on curiosity. And the third thing is, tailor your sessions to the client. And also tailor is utilizing everything that happens. When we spoke about the dog and I closed my door, the dog doesn't come in. But somewhere during the session, he start barking because probably somebody came into the hallway or came in front of the door. That is utilizing everything that's happening and don't make it strange because if you work with a client and they hear something and you don't do anything with it, a system of them says, I hear something strange. He doesn't or he or she doesn't say anything. coach or a therapist, but I hear something strange, what's happening? And at that moment, actually, the safety drops. So make everything that's happening aware and make it normal. And that utilizing, that is extremely hard to come aware for a lot of clinicians and coaches, because it means you have to step back again, what we said, in observing what's happening. And not only what's happening as a client, what is happening in the bigger space. and normalize it. And if you do those little things, life becomes already better. Besides, say, it depends if you work on Zoom or in physical, but those tricks from utilizing and tailoring are essential for every good therapist, besides the observing part. But you come aware that although it's taught in many schools, it's also not taught in many schools. And they talk about you have to keep the space, hold the space and all those kind of things. If they do a little NLP in there, make rapport. So they say, okay, I have to sit just like Jeffrey. So I'm going to sit like this. Don't give a little smile. And he thinks this is good. And I think we have to mirror or counter mirror. And that's not what it is. It is more, it has to be something like a total awareness. Because the moment I start mimicking you, I know you start laughing. You think, Chris, can you just stop being crazy? Because it is too obvious. But actually, I'm now using, say, one part of my whole wisdom, my head in this moment, to observe. You say, I'm going to do just like you. Instead of sensing and bringing integration between my cognitive and my somatic part. Because my somatic part already knew up front when I started putting my hand underneath my chin like you had. It does not feel good for me and for him. I came with my sensory system because I love to be integrated in that part. That integration is key.

: Thank you. Thank you for sharing that beautiful wisdom. That definitely mirrors that 30 years of earned wisdom and insights. Thank you so much for sharing these insights with us today. I truly, truly appreciate sharing this conversation with you.

undefined: It's so likewise, Jeffrey, I come where we already are one hour chatting and I think it feels like 10 minutes. Why don't you go on for the next hour? But I think your audience says, no, no, please, not another hour. Do it next time. But I thank you so much. Having an interview with you is almost like coming home with somebody who knows, say, all the insides and the outsides and knows how to play with all those kind of, now say, all the Lessons we learned, we don't call it research, but you're so right. I also learn and study a lot of things. And all the things we studied, we just blend it in to make it for your listeners, I hope, amazing, so they also enjoyed it and also learn something new from it.

: Thank you so much today for being open and vulnerable to allow me to be somewhat probing and challenging today as well.

undefined: That is so, that is also, I didn't mention it, but it's so good. But if you're just in the field, oh, yes, great. Oh, yes, great. And I think, come on, you're a specialist. When they say something you don't agree with, just kick me back, just say something. Because that makes also that we go to a next level of actually of thinking, because that means, hey, there's more and we help each other to create something new, synergy. So thank you for doing so, Jeffrey.

: Likewise, there again, we've established that tempo and pacing through familiarity and getting to know each other. You know, this isn't our first trip to the rodeo together. So we've already established that grounded space. I'm going to reinforce that today that we're not always in that leisure of space with each other. And we have to be open to those empathy gaps where we haven't established that framework in that structure. So. Be mindful of that. So before we scurry off here today, share with our listeners where they can reach out to you and learn more about your three brain system and also just connect with you and tap into this source of wonderful wealth of information and knowledge you share.

undefined: Okay of course you can type in Christoffel Snijders in Google and maybe you find it but the Dutch name is an N, an E, an I and a J so that's hard. So besides my own website there's my name but probably only the Dutch know because they know how to spell it. If you type in three brains intelligence You find me, and you find all, say, you find some free resources, you find actually also two free tests about which brain of yours is dominant in making decisions, which you're not aware of, and which kind of what we've spoken, what kind of protectors do we have, we can call it limiting beliefs, that are actually context situational, sometimes sparking up. And they just give you an insight actually to become better, and you can help everybody with it. So three brains intelligence, you find me, you find everything. And then when this is released, I got all the things from Jeffrey. I also put it on my website from, hey, this podcast I spoke with Jeffrey. Have a look at it. Have a listen to it because this is amazing.

: Thank you so much for sharing those resources with us on a regular basis. I know I truly have found great meaning in comparing and contrasting our different models, our different approaches, but ultimately finding that human connection to where we find those common grounds that can co-create that space of collaboration together. So thank you, thank you so much for joining us with that. Namaste to the like meek, knowledge is the light in you. Please come back and join us again soon. Thank you, my friend. Take care. You too. In this episode, Chris and I explored how developing the capacity to hold complexity allows us to meet our emotional experiences with curiosity rather than resistance. By expanding our window of tolerance, we cultivate the safety needed to stay present with what feels uncomfortable, transforming reactivity into self-awareness. When we learn to anchor in this embodied safety, we open the door to deeper connection with ourselves and others. Finally today, remember, true growth begins when we surrender trying to fix what feels hard and instead create space to feel it safely. Because safety is the foundation of transformation. If you found value and meaning in this episode, please share it with a friend or loved one. And as always, we're grateful for you, our valued community of therapeutic professionals. This has been The Light Inside. I'm Jeffrey Biesecker.