The In between

Grief could be the person you once were,

to the one you are becoming.

A life you thought you were supposed to live,

to the life you are living now.

From what was,

to what is no longer.

From an idea of who you thought you’d be,

to accepting who you are

and who you have become.

You are exactly where you need to be.

What is similar in all of this

is what lives in between —

the resistance to letting go

and the fear of allowing things to simply be.

Grief is waiting —

a doorway waiting to be met,

not avoided.

-Michelle Doublet

The Sacred Threshold

When the body begins to feel safe enough to explore grief, pain, and old emotional landscapes, there can be an unexpected threshold. Instead of relief alone, a new question arises: Is it actually safe to feel safety? In this space, people may begin to question their own reality. A form of emotional derealization can surface - where things feel unfamiliar, strange, or even disorienting.

There can also be fear. Not only fear of letting go, but a deeper, more subtle fear that asks: Can it truly be safe to allow new things in? Can I trust this softness? Can I trust this peace? When safety begins to arrive after long periods of loss or instability, the nervous system may feel disoriented. There can be a subconscious pull to stay with the pain simply because it is familiar - because it once felt like the only constant. In that way, pain can strangely feel safer than peace, and safety itself can begin to feel suspicious.

As we move toward safety, fear can emerge to question that very safety.

And yet, grief itself is inevitable. It does not disappear - it remain a living presence in our lives, woven into our story, our memory, and our capacity to love. It is not something to escape or overcome. Grief is a doorway - one that leads us into vulnerability, depth, tenderness, and ultimately, healing.

What becomes important to notice is the difference between allowing grief and fear to move through us and becoming anchored only in what was. When grief and fear are held without movement, it can turn into a place we live inside rather than a passage we travel through. Not because something is wrong, but because grief can feel like the last thread connecting us to what mattered. Staying in the pain can feel safer than stepping forward into the unknown.

Yet grief was never meant to trap us in the past. It was meant to open us into deeper truth.

There is space for both. Grief and joy can coexist. Pain and gratitude can live side by side. The capacity to hold two truths at once - sadness for what was lost and openness to joy for what continues - is not a betrayal. It is expansion. It is growth. It is the gentle unfolding of life forward.

Memory does not disappear when the pain softens. Love does not vanish when the body begins to feel safe again. What was real remains real - even as new joy enters the room. We can honor what was, remain in resonance with what we’ve lost, and still create space for happiness, pleasure, and life to move through us again.

And in that duality, safety deepens. Identity stabilizes. The nervous system learns that healing does not erase the past - it honors it, while making space for what is still becoming.

-Michelle Doublet

Musical Scale: A Doorway to the Embodied Self

Musical Scale: A Doorway to the Embodied Self

Integrating the Nervous System, Chakra System & Somatic Healing

Developed and written by Michelle Doublet, LCSW, E-RYT, YACEP, CCTP-II Certified Somatic Parts Work and Trauma Resolution Energy Therapy Practitioner

Introduction: Messages From the Body

Musical Scale: A Doorway to the Embodied Self expands on Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory and introduces additional trauma responses—fawn and functional freeze—to deepen how we understand survival states. The nervous system is just one part of the story. Our survival responses also echo through the body’s energy system—our chakras—revealing deeper patterns of disconnection from the embodied Self.

This isn’t about one system before the other. It’s about integration. Trauma, survival adaptations, and misalignment from our truth show up across multiple layers: nervous system, energetic body, emotions, and intuition.

What Is the Embodied Self?

The embodied self is a lived experience—when your body, emotions, and intuition are in relationship with one another. It’s the space where you feel alive, centered, and whole.

Disconnection from this self happens when we’ve been taught to survive instead of belong—to overfunction, people-please, numb, dissociate, or shut down. These survival strategies imprint not only on the nervous system but also energetically. The result? A felt sense that something is “off,” even if you can’t name it.

Nervous System & Chakra System: The Body Speaks in Layers

Your body speaks through sensation, but it also speaks through energy. You might feel:

  • An anxious buzzing in the body (sympathetic activation)

  • A block in the throat or heart (energetic constriction)

  • Difficulty speaking your needs (disconnection from truth)

These are not separate experiences—they are layered expressions of one deeper truth: something within you wants to come home.

Understanding the Fawn Response

Fawn is a lesser-acknowledged survival state where you prioritize others’ needs to stay safe—through appeasement or placating behaviors.

There’s often tightness in the throat, chest, and jaw, and energetically, this may show up in the heart, throat, or solar plexus—the very centers of love, voice, and will.

A full exploration of fawn patterns and energetic imprints is included in the workbook.

Functional Freeze: When You’re Doing, But Not Feeling

Functional freeze is a state where you’re externally “fine”—working, showing up, functioning—but internally numb, foggy, or disconnected.

You may feel like you’re pressing the gas and the brakes at the same time.

Energetically, this often shows up in the solar plexus, diaphragm, and third eye.

Want to explore this more? It’s all inside the workbook.

The Window of Tolerance & Your Energy Field

Dr. Dan Siegel’s Window of Tolerance describes the range within which your nervous system can safely experience emotion and connection. When you’re outside the window, you enter:

  • Hyperarousal: Anxiety, anger, restlessness

  • Hypoarousal: Numbness, freeze, collapse

From an energetic lens, this window is also when your chakras and aura can recalibrate. Inside the window, your energy field feels cohesive, flowing, alive. Outside the window, it can collapse inward, scatter outward, or shut down completely.

Chakra Awareness Within the Musical Scale

Reflections from the Body.

Here’s a glimpse of how nervous system states may reflect through your energy body:

  • Ventral (Safe & Social): Heart, Throat, Crown

  • Fight: Solar Plexus

  • Fawn – Appeasement: Solar Plexus, Heart

  • Functional Freeze: Diaphragm, Third Eye

For the full Chakra + Nervous System reflection map, download the workbook below.

This is not a diagnosis tool, but a reflective guide—an invitation to explore what your body and energy might be revealing.

Reclaiming the Embodied Self

Healing is not about managing symptoms—it’s about reconnecting with your inner world. It’s about meeting the Self that trauma asked you to forget. While the nervous system and chakra system are different in form—biological and energetic—they are intimately linked.

They move in relationship, like breath and body—each influencing and reflecting the other. A shift in your biology can ripple through your energy field, and a block in your energy can shape how your nervous system responds to life.

Our nervous system holds the imprints of lived experience—the stories, beliefs, and narratives that shape how we relate to ourselves, others, and the world. The chakra system reflects and expresses those imprints energetically—through emotional flow, constriction, or overactivation.

When one shifts, the other responds.

Just as a single offbeat note can affect an entire musical piece—or one misaligned posture can shift the flow of a yoga practice—a dysregulated nervous system can cause a chakra to dim, overcompensate, or shut down. Likewise, blocked energy in a chakra can impact the body’s ability to regulate, rest, or relate.

When we tend to both—the science of the nervous system and the wisdom of the energy field—we create harmony, integration, and deep movement back into the Self.

When we regulate, we gain greater access to the inner resources that may have been blocked in survival states—power, voice, clarity, compassion, and connection.

Within the Window of Tolerance: A Doorway to the Embodied Self

When we return to regulation, it’s not just about feeling calm. It’s about reconnecting with the capacity to feel—to move through the full range of emotion without getting stuck in survival.

We begin to sense what’s present in the body, relate to it with more awareness, and respond rather than react.

Within this regulated space—what we call the window of tolerance—there exists a doorway. According to Michelle Doublet’s framework, The Musical Scale: A Doorway to the Embodied Self, this is the threshold where healing begins to deepen. It’s here that we access the embodied self—not as a concept, but as a felt, living truth.

It’s the place where truth becomes accessible. Where clarity, intuition, and emotional expression come back online. We begin to access the parts of us that survival once disconnected—our groundedness, emotions, voice, clarity, and trust.

And within this doorway, we don’t just reconnect with emotion—we access our deeper knowing. This is where intuition awakens, clarity sharpens, and truth becomes embodied. The parts of us that once felt distant or silenced begin to speak with wisdom.

Inside the workbook, you’ll find a full breakdown of this concept and how it connects and relates to your healing journey

We’re not trying to fix but simply create the space for the Self to rediscover how to anchor and flow—by releasing the beliefs and narratives that no longer serve us and making space for what is more in alignment with our now.

Ready to Go Deeper?

Download the Musical Scale: A Doorway to the Embodied Self workbook—your guide to somatic, energetic, and intuitive restoration (button below)

© 2024 Michelle Doublet | Thriving Light Wellness

All rights reserved. You are welcome to share this post with proper credit and a link back to the original source. Please do not copy or reproduce content without written permission. This work is intended for educational and inspirational use only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or medical treatment.

About the Author

Michelle Doublet, LCSW, E-RYT, YACEP, CCTP-II

Certified Somatic Parts Work and Trauma Resolution Energy Therapy Practitioner

Michelle is a licensed psychotherapist, somatic practitioner, energy healer, and intuitive guide. Her work weaves nervous system science, subtle energy, movement, and ancient wisdom to help others reclaim their embodied self and live with power, clarity, and compassion. She is the founder of Thriving Light Wellness and owner of SomaSoul Embodiment, creator of The Sacred Path.

Download the Full Workbook

Want to explore the full chakra-integrated Nervous System Musical Scale?

Download Musical Scale: A Doorway to the Embodied Self—a trauma-informed, somatic guide to reclaim clarity, truth, and power.

Click Below to Get the Workbook

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A Reminder For You

Something that isn't talked about enough:

When you begin to heal from trauma, your body slowly exits survival mode. And what often comes next isn't a burst of energy or motivation - it's deep rest. Craving solitude. Quiet. Time alone with yourself.

This can feel incredibly uncomfortable if you've spent most of your life in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. You might label it as "lazy" because of internalized beliefs and societal conditioning around productivity and worth.

But this rest?

This sacred pause?

It's not regression - it's recalibration.

It's your nervous system finally laying down its armor. It's the beginning of wiring new neural pathways that say: I am safe. I can be with myself. I can just be.

Let yourself honor the stillness.

This is where true healing takes root - where new patterns, beliefs, and ways of being begin to form.

-Michelle Doublet, LCSW, E-RYT, YACEP, CCTP-II

Certified Somatic Parts Work and Trauma Resolution Energy Therapy Practitioner

Worksheets that offer more than just "more information"

Body Awareness and Mindfulness Worksheets both offering Reflection pages with prompts. Includes a Feel Wheel to offer additional guidance and support.

Purpose:

This packet was developed intentionally for the purpose of connecting to the body + mind. Providing you o tap into your curiosity and more understanding of its language that we sometimes do not have words for.

The Body Awareness Worksheet is designed to help individuals develop a deeper connection with their physical sensations and bodily experiences. By enhancing body awareness, one can gain insight into how emotions and stress manifest physically, leading to improved emotional regulation and overall well-being.

The Mindfulness Worksheet is aimed at cultivating a present-moment awareness and fostering a non-judgmental attitude towards one's thoughts and feelings. This worksheet supports the integration of mindfulness into daily life, enhancing mental clarity and emotional resilience.

A ‘Feel Wheel’ is also provided to help navigate, identify and name the feelings and emotions that arise during the practice which will deepen connection and understanding of your experience.

*These worksheets are tools to enhance your personal journey, providing structured yet flexible frameworks for self-exploration, personal growth and self-discovery. Offering you holistic approach to healing that honors the mind-body connection.

Get Yours Now!

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The Comeback

When we finally get out of Fight and Flight- feeling tired or even exhausted is normal and even a good sign.

Listen to what your body is needing—rest. This is part of the recovery and comeback.

-Michelle Doublet

Reclaiming Connection and Clarity: Returning to the Embodied Self

Reclaiming Connection and Clarity: Returning to the Embodied Self | THE EMBODY LAB

By Michelle Doublet, LCSW, E-RYT, CCTP-II, Certified TRET Practitioner

The Impact of Complex Trauma on Connection and Intuition

Complex trauma shapes our entire being—body, mind, and spirit—disrupting our ability to connect authentically with ourselves and others. It leaves lasting imprints on our nervous system, influencing how we perceive the world and interact in relationships. Trauma survival mechanisms such as fight, flight, and shutdown are automatic responses designed to keep us safe in the face of danger, but when trauma is unresolved, these responses can remain activated, interfering with clarity, connection, and intuition.

Additionally, trauma often leads to relational survival strategies such as appeasement and placating, which are distinct forms of the fawn response:

  • Appeasement involves proactively trying to prevent conflict or danger by pleasing others, often at the expense of your own needs or boundaries.

  • Placating is reactive, occurring when fear of harm or rejection causes you to comply or agree, even when it doesn’t align with your truth.

These responses may have been essential for survival in unsafe environments but can lead to chronic disconnection from your inner wisdom and authenticity. Healing requires compassionately addressing these patterns, creating space to distinguish between survival-based reactions and intuitive, embodied responses.

The Role of Boundaries in Healing and Connection

Trauma frequently disrupts our ability to establish healthy boundaries. For some, this manifests as porous boundaries, where it feels impossible to say no. For others, trauma creates rigid boundaries that block connection and intimacy. Both extremes reflect a survival-based approach to safety.

Somatic boundary work helps restore balance, empowering you to set boundaries that protect your energy while fostering authentic connection. This involves:

  • Listening to the body: Recognizing the sensations and signals that arise when boundaries are needed or crossed.

  • Practicing agency: Learning to say yes or no based on your internal needs rather than external pressures.

  • Building trust: Developing boundaries that allow safety and connection to coexist.

Boundaries are a vital step in reconnecting with yourself and others, enabling you to move from survival-based patterns to embodied clarity and trust.

Trauma and the Nervous System: The Automatic Responses

The nervous system governs how we respond to stress and trauma. Its primary automatic responses—fight, flight, and shutdown—are designed to protect us in the face of perceived danger. While these responses are adaptive in the short term, unresolved trauma can leave the nervous system stuck in these survival states, disrupting our sense of safety and connection.

  • Fight: Activates aggression or resistance to confront perceived threats.

  • Flight: Drives avoidance or escape behaviors to seek safety.

  • Shutdown: Results in emotional or physical numbness, dissociation, or a sense of helplessness.

These responses are not a choice—they are automatic, rooted in the body’s innate desire to protect you. Healing involves teaching the nervous system to recognize when it is safe to move out of survival and into regulation and connection.

Reclaiming the Embodied Self: A Holistic Approach

Healing trauma requires addressing its imprints on the body, nervous system, and energy field. Through somatic practices, boundary work, Trauma Resolution Energy Therapy (TRET), and a Somatic Internal Family Systems (IFS) approach, you can restore balance, clarity, and connection.

Somatic Practices: Listening to the Body’s Wisdom

Somatic practices help you tune into the sensations, emotions, and signals stored in your body, fostering a deeper connection to your embodied Self. These practices include:

  • Body scans: Cultivate awareness of physical sensations and areas of tension or numbness.

  • Grounding exercises: Use breathwork and gentle movement to anchor yourself in the present moment.

  • Somatic boundary work: Practice physical gestures to embody boundaries, such as pushing movements or expanding personal space.

By reconnecting with your body, you can process stored trauma, regulate your nervous system, and reclaim your inner wisdom.

Somatic Internal Family Systems: Embracing All Parts

Trauma fragments our sense of Self, creating internal conflicts between protective and vulnerable parts. Somatic Internal Family Systems (IFS) helps you connect with and integrate these parts, fostering internal harmony and clarity.

Each part of you—whether it’s the appeaser, the protector, or the wounded inner child—has a purpose rooted in survival. By engaging with these parts somatically, you can:

  • Locate parts in the body: Notice where each part “lives” and its associated sensations.

  • Engage in dialogue: Use breath, movement, and curiosity to understand each part’s intentions and needs.

  • Release and integrate: Reconnect these parts into the larger whole, fostering safety and coherence.

This process strengthens the nervous system, enabling you to move out of survival states and into authentic connection.

Trauma Resolution Energy Therapy: Healing at the Cellular and Energetic Level

Trauma leaves not only physical and emotional imprints but also energetic ones. Trauma Resolution Energy Therapy (TRET) addresses these imprints at a cellular and energetic level, helping you release blockages and restore balance.

TRET supports healing by:

  • Clearing the energetic charge of trauma.

  • Reconnecting you with your natural vitality and flow.

  • Realigning your energy systems to support regulation and integration.

When combined with somatic and IFS practices, TRET facilitates deep, multidimensional healing, helping you reclaim connection and clarity.

Connection as the Key to Healing

Trauma often isolates us, not just from others but also from ourselves. Rebuilding connection is essential for healing. This connection can take many forms:

  • Connection to the body: Practices like trauma-sensitive yoga and somatic movement foster self-awareness and trust.

  • Connection to others: Safe, attuned relationships help rewire the nervous system and rebuild trust in others.

  • Connection to intuition: Reclaiming the body’s wisdom allows you to discern between survival-based reactions and authentic guidance.

Moving Toward Clarity and Wholeness

Healing is not about erasing trauma; it is about transforming your relationship with it. Through somatic embodiment, boundary work, IFS, and TRET, you can reconnect with your body, trust your intuition, and reclaim your authentic Self.

This journey requires patience and compassion, but each step brings you closer to a life rooted in safety, connection, and clarity. By leaning into all parts of yourself with kindness, you can rediscover the wholeness that has always been within you.

Sources

  1. 
David E. & Elizabeth H. PhD, 2011 - Overcoming Trauma Through Yoga - Reclaiming Your Body

  2. Yoga-Enhanced Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Y-CBT) for Anxiety Management: A Pilot Study

  3. Lisa C, 2018 - The Art of Psychic Reiki

  4. Susan McConnell - Somatic Internal Family Systems Therapy: Awareness Breath, Resonance, Movement and Touch in Practice

Hold Space For Yourself Too

This is a time of transition. As we transition there is an opportunity to make significant change and manifest what you desire. We can either find ourselves gripping so firmly on to the old where we develop feelings of resentment, anger and frustration - where there is no room for growth.

Or, we can be curious and courageous enough to dance in the light of the allowing where there is a feeling of light, love, trust within our heart where anything magnificent is possible.

The difference between gripping and allowing is the relationship we have with our good friend, fear.

What kind of relationship do you have with fear?

Have you ever been able to step forward into the allowing?

Can you imagine what you can have if you had a loving relationship with fear?

How different would you handle situations of transition and change?

What would be different?

-Michelle Doublet LCSW, ERYT

#movebeyondyourstories

You are enough

As we peel away the several layers of meaning and depth, I’d like to touch upon the fourth Yama (self-regulating behaviors involving our interactions with other people and the world at large) of Patanjali’s five yamas of the yoga sutras, Asteya | non-stealing. 

As we practice Asteya on the mat & off, we are not just talking about physically non-stealing from mankind, but the act of falling into greed & cravings of artificial needs. What is the root cause of this? How do we end the suffering that arises from these desires, wants and needs that stem from feeling a 'lack' in life? 

What goes on for you on your mat? Do you find yourself pushing & forcing asanas (poses) because you feel that you are not 'good enough'? ....That you can only be good if you get into 'that' pose?

Developing a sense of faith in ourselves, instead of trying to fill that 'emptyness', we practice self containment, we build a sense of abundance vs scarcity .

when we learn this, we realize that all we ever needed is already there. All that we have in ourselves is enough..... 

Tune in

“When we learn to tune into our body, we find we have all the answers. When we simply decide to acknowledge any lower energy such as tension, strain, pain and ease up on the fighting, griping and holding on, we then have the fierce opportunity to make space for peace, strength, vitality, letting go of risk of illness and even disease.”

- Michelle Doublet

Heart-Centered

Within the realms of your heart is where presence is. With heartfulness, true mindfulness, the heart of life is present, decreasing our fears, healing everything that gives us seperation, giving you back connection.

-Michelle Doublet, LCSW, ERYT

Light

Your light may disturb, upset & even anger the darkness. The darkness can’t handle its own reflection. Don’t dim your light, shine it even brighter & see what happens.

Does the sun fear the shadows?

Listen to your heart today

Listen to your heart today.

Feel your feelings fully without judging them.

Emotions are your guidance system.

If you allow yourself to feel all your feelings fully, regardless of whether they’re sad, angry, or joyous, your heart’s wisdom will heal your pain.

- Christiane Northrup, M.D