Ep115 - Unlocking Your Body's Natural Healing Response with TRE

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What if the key to releasing decades of tension wasn't about trying harder, but about getting out of your own way? 

Physiotherapist and TRE Australia founder Richmond Heath reveals how your body already knows how to heal itself through spontaneous tremoring, the same natural mechanism animals use daily, but humans have learned to suppress. 

He explores the profound intelligence behind involuntary movement and how somatic techniques like TRE access the body’s reflexive responses for deeper, more sustainable healing. 

Richmond takes us through:

— Why emotional numbness often masquerades as stability

— Why Western culture pathologizes the body's natural shaking response

— How you can't access 90% of your body tension through willpower alone

— Simple exercises that activate your body's innate tremoring reflex

— How spontaneous shaking instantly shifts the nervous system into recovery

— The natural rhythm between contraction and release builds both strength and surrender

And so much more!

Richmond Heath is a pioneer in somatic stress recovery and the founder of TRE Australia, where he has spent over a decade teaching people how to access the body’s innate ability to release stress through a natural, often-overlooked reflex: shaking. 

His work with Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) offers a paradigm-shifting approach to wellbeing—one that helps calm the nervous system, ease chronic tension, and support emotional balance without the need for mental effort, storytelling, or structured routines. TRE is now used by individuals, athletes, and wellness professionals seeking practical, body-led tools for resilience and recovery.

Connect with Richmond:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richmond-heath-08719326/

Website: https://www.treaustralia.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057615902736

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tre_australia/?hl=en

Connect with Aimee:

Instagram: @aimeetakaya 

Facebook: Aimee Takaya 

Learn more about Aimee Takaya, Hanna Somatic Education, and The Radiance Program at⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠www.freeyoursoma.com⁠⁠⁠.⁠⁠

LISTEN WHILE READING!

A: Hey there listener, who would you be if you were able to let go of tensions in your body, maybe even tensions or especially tensions that you may not even be aware of? I have Richmond Heath physiotherapist, TRE(Trauma and Tension Release Exercises) trainer and founder of TRE Australia and we are going to investigate the wisdom of your body and your body's ability to let go of tension that has been holding perhaps your whole life. Stay tuned. 

A: Every day there is a forgetting and every moment there is the possibility of remembering. Remembering who you truly are, awakening to your body, to the inner world, to the experience of being alive. Here is where you find the beauty, the joy and here is where you free your Soma. I'm your host Aimee Takaya. I'm here to help you move from pain to power, from tension to expansion and ultimately from fear to love. 

A: Hi, I'm so glad to have you on the show. Welcome, welcome Richmond. 

R: Thanks Aimee, it's great to be on. 

A: Yeah, and I just got to say I got to have a little mini experience with you just now and I'm feeling a little extra lovely in my body right now because I feel this kind of lightness of being that I sort of associate with experiencing somatic release and there's so many different ways that we can somatically release our bodies because our body is super intelligent and I just got to experience a short mini session with you and it was great and I'm feeling very lucky to have received that so thank you. 

R: You're welcome, it was a pleasure to watch your body opening up and how simple and easy it is to access this release sort of mechanism. 

A: Yeah, and that's, you know, I love to explore these like really simple, I mean as you said it really simple ways our nervous system is actually designed or built or however you want to put it to address these things that we often think are going to be like really hard to take care of right whether it's muscle and joint tension or pain in our bodies or mental and emotional stress. We tend to make a really like big deal out of like taking care of that in the world and yet our body has everything that we need in order to process and resolve things at least in my experience. What would you have to say about that? 

R: Oh look, I would say that was one of the biggest sort of realizations of my life was starting to experience that so my background is a physiotherapist which is in Australia very mechanical model. There was always the sense that it was up to me to fix you. So I was the one making the difference, I was fixing the body and my sort of first awakening in this area, Aimee. 

Was doing a 10 day vipassana meditation course and part of the reason I went to that was in my 30s my body was starting to break down. I had chronic leg pain, so did pain, back pain, shoulder pain and I couldn't do the sport and exercise I used to do to make myself feel good. 

So I had to find another way and as I was meditating there at some point my body started to spontaneously move on its own and then I went on a very wild and woolly journey because I had no framework or concepts for what was happening but one of the key realizations for me was that when I was meditating to a point where I was just observing my body and I wasn't trying to change it and I wasn't trying to control it effectively. 

I'd given up of trying to make the pain go away or make myself relax and my body started to move on its own and as I allowed that process to unfold the key realization for me was when I actually got out of the way of my body the body had infinite ability to relax and resolve and reorganize itself in a way that I never did. And you know over many years as I started to explore that then I started to work with where I can help other people through TREs the main modality I use but help other people learn how to kind of get out of the way and allow the organic wisdom of the body to release us in a way that I you know I can't ever do consciously. 

That's the magic part of the using involuntary movement and TRE is just one modality there's lots of other ways of accessing it or making use of it but this sense that the body is able to release and unwind tensions it's able to reorganize movement patterns subcortically below the level of our conscious control so it's doing something different to everything else that we're doing consciously and volitionally. So I'm 100% aligned with you know everything we're saying here about the somatic wisdom of the body and reminding people of that and giving them ways to access it. 

A: Yeah well and I love that you're bringing up the experience of a postnat because I got to say I used to describe a 10-day vipasta as like meditation boot camp because it's 10 days and it's like I don't like eight hours of meditation a day if you show up for all things starting at like four in the morning you know and they're taking you through like this process I mean for those listening who haven't gone to a vipassana before it's like they take you through anapana where you're just focusing on your nose breathing and then you start doing a body scan and you know so many people focus on meditation being this thing about your mind.

You know that you're going to somehow clear your mind or you know overcome your monkey brain and all this stuff but what you're speaking to is that you actually awoke your somatic intelligence and I think that when you go deeper into any kind of meditation practice but in my personal experience vipassana because I do believe vipassana is very somatic body scanning you know feeling and sensing with equanimity each area in your body until as you experience you surrender and you came across this wisdom that is you know.

Actually I think bigger picture wise you know your mind is just another part of your body it's just one little part you know of their conscious mind that we think of as like this big deal in our western world right so it's it's really a miraculous that you discovered it and you said there was kind of like a journey to get to tre can you tell us about that like from that point in vipassana where you kind of had this realization that there was more you know to your body's wisdom than maybe you had previously known like how did that how did the vents progress that you discovered TRE? 

R: Yeah well a long story short was I snuck back into the hall late one night because one of the foundations of vipassana is you sit still and so I was you know had this sort of this challenge point I'm like well am I going to force my body not to move or you know the teachings that I'm hearing is observe the body I'm thinking well I'm just observing it. 

I'm not making it happen so I'm going to observe it and let it move so you know I snuck back into the hall and started letting my body move and the other thing that was interesting for me was that my mind also started to move so as my and by that I mean I was really aware of going I'm not thinking I'm not consciously thinking I'm just watching these thoughts generated and a lot of thoughts were quite fascinating and you know insightful and that sort of thing so eventually I got kicked out got asked to leave because I was letting my body move. 

A: Oh you got asked to leave? I love that and I think that I was also ashamed at the same time. 

R: Yeah so anyway so that was that and it was not for and as I say I didn't have any I didn't have any framework so I remember going back to my brother and sister-in-law's house and talking to them and allowing my arms to move as I was talking to them because I'm just letting the awareness be there and you know the looks on their faces were oh my god he's gone completely crazy and so this is in our western paradigm where spontaneous involuntary movement Bradford Keeney in his book Shaking Medicine calls it the last great taboo is that if you shake you get pathologised you know.

You can talk about what drugs you've taken what sex you're having everything how much money you earn but if you shake and tremble or spontaneously move that's like the biggest taboo so I was lucky that I don't know might have been six or seven or eight years later a friend gave me a TREDVD and I did a few little exercises just like we did with you lay on the floor had this tiny little vibration inside my leg I didn't think much of it hadn't made any connection with the the vipassana experience from years before went to bed and then the next morning I woke up with a different body I slept like I hadn't slept in 30 years. 

I used to always carry a lot of tension in my calves so that we're not sitting in the mornings I'd often have my heels off the ground like part of that almost like autism spectrum where you've got that chronic tension and I'd had years of Achilles tendinitis and I remember Aimee sitting on the toilet the next morning and just thinking oh my god what has happened it felt like my heels were like a foot through the floor because they dropped down for the first time in you know 35- 35 years.

So I didn't understand or have a you know what's going on in terms of the mechanics but I knew that this was doing something extraordinary that I hadn't experienced in everything else I'd tried over my years you know I'd done everything everything every sort of modality you could think of it was doing something different and again to be clear it's TRES just one model and framework it was this you know what we would call in TRES neurogenic movement meaning that the nervous system is generating it's not an accurate term it's not just the nervous system but it's an easy term to use and that it.

I was doing something that I couldn't do consciously and so then I went on a journey I brought David Bercelli out the TRES founder from the US he came out to Australia and then I've been doing it full-time 15 15 or 16 years and what TRES did give me was a sort of westernised neuro-scientific trauma-informed model of the body and movement which let me then make sense of it in sort of you know a polyvagal theory or a biomechanical models the beauty of what TRES was doing was taking this organic ancient wisdom in the body that every different culture that's experienced explains it in a different way and it translates it into western scientific language so that ultimately my ego can say oh this makes sense I'm going to let it happen. 

A: Did you know that your muscles are holding on to thoughts memories and feelings if you have a tight neck or back you're not just getting old you're experiencing a build-up of tension from the life you've lived most people don't know this but there is a part of your brain that can reverse and prevent chronic tension when you relax your muscles you not only move better and regulate your nervous system but you also free yourself from the grip the past has over your body so you can live with freedom confidence and enjoy your life now how does that sound join me Aimee Takaya and discover what my clients are raving about at youcanfreeyorsoma.com.

A: Cool yes and you know what you said about the taboo of it I think that's really really true I've had clients we talked about this before starting this interview but I you know with the bodywork that I do the somatic bodywork I do I will have clients that start having tremors or just start shaking involuntarily sometimes it's a whole body shake even sometimes it's just their legs or it's just their arms you know sometimes there's a noise they have to make while doing it I don't know.

If noise is part of TRE at all but there's sometimes a sound they have to make and you know the first time this happened I was a little alarmed and then I called one of my mentors and I asked her about it and she said oh no that's actually under the realm of normal and just help them be comfortable with that and don't interrupt it and you know let their body work it out and then when they're when their body is feeling like they're done then you know you just kind of move on to the next part of what you're doing you know and so there's really been a big kind of feeling on my end that part of what people need is permission to let their body do what their body needs to do and that's you know again another part of my work is we're always following what your body wants to do it you know 

I might have like a plan for you know what I think you know based on what you've told me what's going to give you the most relief today but your body always knows much much better than I know where we need to go and what we need to do right so this is very very much in alignment with my approach and I think like kind of when I'm thinking about like a somatic approach who was it it was like was that guy Robert Reich had these really interesting ideas you know where he equated our somatic intelligence and he used the analogy of an orgasm this involuntary you know spasm and shift of our our physicality but also our consciousness like simultaneous right 

R: yeah that William Reich was the he was one of the sort of you know the grandfathers of a lot of this this movement and in in what you say they're Amy about you know the shaking and trembling is normal which absolutely it is anyone who's got a dog you know you see your dog shakes multiple times during the day and it's really fascinating some people did some research I think it was called the dog field study and they wanted to look at the stress levels of dogs comparing them when they were walking on lead versus off lead.

So they're going oh walking dogs on lead is stressful that's what they were wanting to research so they hooked up heart monitors to the dog so they could follow their pulse and then they took them on walks either on lead or off lead now they found something that they were not looking for which is quite amazing, which was that when the dogs started to shake and travel they did their little shake that the every single time the dogs did that was because their heart rate was starting to increase and go up and a little two or three seconds shake instantly changed the direction and their heart rates then started to calm down.

It might have been something like eight beats per minute on average or something so what I'm saying there is even in the dogs it wasn't just that the shaking what happened while the body was shaking is was that it was switching the body into a in a release of parasympathetic recovery mode so even when the shaking had finished the body was still down regulating now the sad thing is that in our western culture where shaking is still seen as a pathology so if you if you're shaking and trembling and you've got trauma it's like it's a symptom of PTSD people call shaking a panic attack it couldn't be further from the truth it's very close to a panic attack because the body has initiated panic. 

But the shaking's got nothing to do with fighting or fleeing or freezing it's the release and the recovery and the using up of the of the adrenaline to down regulate the system and in you know the trauma world and sort of more of a CBT world in the DSM for the mental health manual shaking and trembling is still seen as a symptom of stress and anxiety PTSD social anxiety and even in the birthing world which a lot of your listeners will have experienced shaking and trembling during or after birth where often people think oh you're cold or you're in shock.

So in the western culture we have completely missed the purpose of this shaking reflex and we pathologize it now the reason this is sad is it's not just that we're missing out on something that can be useful for us like oh if I start adding this in and let my body shake things are going to improve is that this shaking reflex is the way that the nervous system relaxes and reorganizes itself so by suppressing it whether that's medically if I'm a soldier and I come back from service and I've got the shakes and they give me medication.

Or you know I know stories of women who've been shaking during or after birth and people are trying to hold it down or even if we're just unconsciously holding it culturally because I think if my hands are shaking while I'm public speaking that means I'm afraid yes I am nervous but the shaking is not part of being nervous it's calming me down so I can present better.

But we've all been told that's just anxiety and nerves is that when we suppress this and inhibit it we're actually preventing the body from regulating itself so we're oh yeah it's locking in it's like slamming the door on the emergency exit so it's not just that we're missing out on something that can help us feel better it's actually something that's contributing to the build-up of internal pressure and stress that most of us in the west carrying our bodies and our lives 

A: yeah I couldn't agree more I think that there's a lot of physical suppression that people live under that they were just conditioned to as children because they you know weren't allowed to wiggle around I mean even just the culture of like putting kids in a school where they have to sit at the desk and stare at a teacher you know that's not that's not normal that really isn't normal for any human but especially not for a child children need to move children want to shake and wiggle and jump and you know I absolutely believe that their bodies are trying to regulate and we're preventing that by pathologizing it by judging it by you know literally you know putting them in a position where if they move around they get punished and that continues on into adulthood you know and I think that one of the reasons that some people you know it likes like in my world and this is my me myself here. 

But like people go to raves and they go to dance clubs and they go to places where they can move in an uninhibited way you know because even within the realms of like yoga or exercise there's like a right way to move and there's how you should be moving and if you're not moving how everyone else is moving there's something wrong with you right what's wrong with your leg why is your leg moving like that you know versus in these kind of free form environments like ecstatic dance or rape or I went to a fibrid thems where there is a structure right but there's also a lot of invitation to do what your body wants to do it's incredibly freeing and it's not just freeing because it's freeing like on a psychological you know emotional plane but as you're speaking to it returns us back to that letting off of the steam letting out of the packed in energy that we've been holding yep 

R: now there's another there's another element here because when tere was started David Burcelli was seeing it in the context of war zones and natural disasters so tere originally got its its name is trauma release exercises so a lot of people think about it it's like i'm blowing off the steam i'm letting my body relax and partly that's that's true but what most people don't realize is that our bodies shake and tremble and spontaneously move for nine months in utero and at that point it's got nothing to do with releasing stress the spontaneous movements is actually how the nervous system connects with the targets in the in the the receptors in the muscle tissues it's how our body develops a body schema and a sense of self.

And then also how it integrates movements so it's not just about releasing tension it's also about reconnecting and reawakening with this reorganizational impulse that's in in the body and one thing that i find really significant amy is and this is when you know we started for at the start of the show with that question is that even those of us who think we're super embodied estimates vary there's no correct one but you know estimates vary that we're only aware of like five to ten percent of our somatic being consciously so this is why i often like to ask people i say right great you're having a great day you're fantastic.

Can you please relax and let go some of the tension in that other 90 percent of your body that you don't have conscious access to and of course it's obvious like i can't i can't let go and the point of this here is that when we only focus on consciously directed techniques and movements and releasing and breathing and meditation there's a limit to what we can do consciously and cognitively and this is the magic of creating space that could be through t re it could be through five rhythms we start to feel the body take over and you let it go it could be through um panditulating or hanosomatics where you're starting to go hey my body's now starting to take it over 

A: and let me know what it needs to do yeah 

R: yeah and this is where the organism is still creating that tension in those blind spots in the areas where we're not sort of consciously connected but the organism also has the capacity to reawaken those areas so the point of key point of difference between a lot of the techniques we do and when we fall into receiving involuntary movement and it starts to take over is that then the organism is start to able to release reawaken and reintegrate those parts of our body and being not just with our conscious mind but with other parts of the body so for example in TRE you might see a hip starts to move.

Or someone's leg starts to shake and then it stops and then their left shoulder starts to move and it stops and then their hip moves again and it stops and then their left shoulder moves but this time there's a little bit more movement in the rib cage and then it stops and then the hips start to move and there's a little bit more movement in the lumbar spine and then it stops and then all of a sudden they both start moving together and those parts start to integrate and reconnect themselves nothing to do with our our conscious movement.

Now the beauty is once they're reintegrated then when we move into conscious movement whether it's dancing or expression more of our body is awakened more of our body is connected and it's more integrated at a deep sort of unconscious movement level so for me this is the key point of why anyone out there you know you think about the vast majority of practices that we all do are cognitively directed so if i'm stretching i'm doing that i'm directing that stretch with my conscious mind if i'm pandulating unless it takes over involuntarily i'm consciously directing that if i'm doing breath training i'm consciously doing that until you know if you're doing breath work then the body takes over and it breathes itself and the beauty with TRE is we go straight into connecting ourselves with the body's movement so as you experience within you know 20 or 30 seconds you feel like there's a vibration.

And i'm not doing that i'm allowing it but there's something inside me which is awakening and so when we target we go target that we go straight into that and people start to have that experience of wow this is moving me and i don't actually have to do anything and then of course as you use that it's not a matter of saying i'll never consciously direct anything it gives us greater access to then integrate the two so when we do then back to using our cognition we've got more connection with our body and more flow and freedom so we can then both surrender and let go more fully but we can also take control and direct out our movements our breath and our mind and our life more more directly as well 

A: yeah no i think that from a motor system perspective like how you're speaking about this it i mean it i think of it as like we have all of this kind of unconscious ambituated movement that's going on in our cerebellum that's just like directing things all the time and keeping your shoulders scrunched and keeping your jaw clenched you know and in my training we are doing you know voluntary pendiculation where it's like okay well your jaw is clenched let's clench it on purpose and then very very slowly let it go.

And then feel it relax and oh now your jaw is not as clenched right and i can see how what you're describing is also a really powerful thing where you know okay well now let's let's clear out kind of all of those extra things that are going on those extraneous contractions through that involuntary thump cortical part you know so you know i'm such a i'm such a explorer of all this stuff and i feel like you know seeing how these things fit together is always so inspiring for me and i'm already like thinking of like oh okay like at my next retreat where i'm having everybody do voluntary pendiculation.

Like wouldn't it be wonderful to have someone like you come in and then guide all these people who've been consciously releasing their body and are more open and more available to you know to to doing something at a subcortical level you know like what a breakthrough they would have you know to be able to combine those two things because as we described it in my training it's like you know you release consciously and then ideally as you said you give it back to your cerebellum you give it back to your unconscious you don't have to be consciously aware of your body all the time you let your body be and it remembers to do what it needs to do right? 

And that's very much what you're describing is that this shaking is part of our nervous system structure we were born doing it just like with pendiculation and to be able to remember that our body can do that is so empowering for every system in our body 

R: Yeah, absolutely. And in my experience Aimee pendiculating conscious volitional you know pendiculation has done in hanosomatics and other practices is probably in my experience the most effective way of preparing the body or supporting the supporting the tremoring body you can use anything you can use yoga traditionally tere had a set of you know lead-in exercises that were kind of stretching and pre-fatiguing the body but one of the beautiful things that I love about it is that it's so quick and easy so you know within 30 seconds or a minute just about everyone starts to get connected to this this tremor reflex.

And because we're doing it lying on the floor it takes very little instruction so it's you know it's not convoluted to learn and the other beautiful things about the involuntary movement again no matter how you get to it but once you get to it is that it doesn't take mental effort and it doesn't take physical effort so with tere you just hold your legs up you can use any muscle group but generally we just hold your legs up once the body starts to take over and move itself it doesn't create fatigue it's really quite fascinating and so what that means is that when we access this involuntary movement response.

It's super easy it's generally pleasurable anyone out there who's ever had an orgasm you think about how the spontaneous movements and undulations of the body feel so this is why I like to emphasize people it's not all about releasing trauma it's often about reawakening the pleasure of movement like an orgasmic you know pulsation through the body and so what it means is that when we're most stressed when we're most fatigued when we're most tired at the end of the day when I've been focusing on the computer all day.

And I don't want to meditate although it'd probably be good for me or if I've been spent the whole day running around kids at a child can set what center whatever work I've done I'm exhausted or I've been fighting fires all day it doesn't take any mental effort or physical effort to start to let your body to shake and tremble so a lot of people use tere lasting in bed lying in bed before they go to sleep bring the knees up the body starts to shake like the dog shaking.

It changes the direction of the nervous system and you know will tend to help people have much deeper and more restorative sleep and so once we've learned how to access it and drop into it people start to find wow this is just a natural part of life we as all mammals we're designed to be having this shaking response regularly anytime that we're not in 100 percent calm relaxed state which I dare say is all the time for most of us in the western world it's that we live like the analogy of the iceberg is that we're generally not aware of the tension and stress on the trauma we carry until we stretch and we're like gee that's tight or until we get a massage and someone pokes in and we're like oh my god I didn't know that I had tension there.

And again this is the key thing around this involuntary movement and connecting straight into it is it takes us to places that we are not consciously aware of and more importantly it often takes us through and heals areas that we generally in our ego and conscious mind is trying to avoid and trying to protect ourselves from and is bracing and holding so we're following the body and letting the body unwind us which is a real again a real significant point of difference because a lot of the time the techniques we use whether they're somatic or mental or more we're all trying to create a very specific outcome which is I want to feel I want to feel better and not to discount it that's what we're that's why we're all doing it but the beauty of following the body's involuntary movement is it's holding those patterns unconsciously because otherwise we're just telling everyone hey just let go of everything and be enlightened 

A: yeah nobody ever showed us how to do that though our body can do it but we weren't shown how to do that you know and someone says relax it just means what not move 

R: that's what people think that's right and so when we start to follow the body we're like oh the body will often one thing that people often discover is they're going oh my god I've done some tremoring oh I'm so relaxed there but I've got this tension in my shoulder which I didn't even know was there but I'm going it's been there for the last 45 years right so it often takes us on this journey where we get more connected to the reality inside us so we often go wow I never realized how stressed and anxious-

Like if for me I discovered after a period of you know probably six months or so that I'd been living with high functioning anxiety my whole life I had no idea I just thought I was kind of a bit antisocial didn't like socializing I just thought I had sacroiliac joint problems because I don't know that there was something wrong with the muscles but I'll never forget only one day I was talking to someone at a workshop and I just noticed I felt tense just kind of thought oh I feel a bit stressed and I took a breath and then literally my pelvic floor let go and it felt like it hit the ground now I've been teaching Pilates for five years full time before that so I'd done a million conscious pelvic contractions and relaxations.

And in that moment I sort of recognized as like wow my pelvic floor has been squeezed on for probably my whole life I was not even aware of it. No matter how, you know, five years of conscious Pilates, there was this layer. And so what I'm saying there is that sense of going at the time, I didn't know why it was squeezed on. I just thought I was a bit tense months down the track. 

As I started to get more reawakened, I was like, oh my God, I can feel that come on because I'm feeling a bit of anxiety. Now that wasn't new. That had already always been there, but just carrying the spirit. 

I wasn't aware of it. So what my point I'm wanting to make here is the body will lead us through, you know, the shadows as much as the light, whereas most of us spend all of our time consciously trying to create the positive stuff. 

A: I know, I know, but it's always going to be a mixed bag. 

R: It's going to be a mixed bag. 

A: Always, you know, and that's the thing I was smiling a bit when you said, you know, people want to feel relaxed because, you know, just like with this modality, I mean, I feel very relaxed after what we did. And usually generally, you know, people come and have a hands on session with me or they come to a class, they feel really calm and relaxed afterwards. But I also know that as you said, it's sometimes in releasing the first layer of what's there, you're going to feel what's underneath of that, or you're going to have the contrast. Now you're going to notice, you know, wet situations, environments, people, you know, thoughts and feelings are part of what sparks that tension or that discomfort in you. You know, so oftentimes I'm like, you know, yes, you will feel more relaxed, but more importantly, you will feel and you will feel your life differently. You will feel more in present in your life. 

R: Yeah, that's right. And this is one of the things I love about David Burcelli, the TRE founders. He talks so often about pulsation. So when we're stressed and when we're traumatized, all we're looking for is some relief. How do I get rid of this tension? 

How do I relax? I'm like, that's fantastic. But that's step one. Now that you're relaxed, what are you going to do? How's your life going to be? And so what I like to know who are you going to be? 

Who are you going to be and how are you going to be different? And not just on a conscious level, the thing I love about like the idea of a tremor and the same as you experience with pandiculation is there is a pulsation between contraction and activation of tension as well as letting go. Now those of us who live in tense bodies, all we want to do is get rid of tension. 

But once you get rid of tension, then it's about awakening your vitality so that the body can generate more tension, which is another word for strength. So when we're traumatized, well, I just want to get away versus going, right, but I want to let my body move and pulsate into deep patterns of strong contraction without the pain. So it's like a cramp but with no pain because that's how the body reawakens its strength. And then there's the relaxation and this is where the tremor or the pulsation is so valuable because it's just as much about reawakening vitality and aliveness in the tissues as it is about being more relaxed. 

So it's not just about releasing tension. We have lots of people who will find that they use their tremoring for creativity. So they'll do a tremor and now they'll sing and they'll go, well, I've got this freedom and I haven't just got a reduction in tension. I've got more more strength or more vibration in my body or other people who use it to go, wow, I'm lying down, the tension has gone and now all of a sudden I've got the next chapter of my book has come flowing through me. 

So there's this sense of it's and this is why I love the sense of in utero. It's not about releasing tension again. Most of us, if we've been traumatized, all we focus is on the tension and trying to get away from it on the past and trying to let go of it. Very soon when we sort of soften that paradigm, we start to come into this beautiful balance place where we're like, yeah, my body is releasing some of this tension here, but it's so reawakening life force vitality and connecting me to more of who I am. So it's not even a matter of what do I do now that I'm more relaxed? 

What can I do? But it's going, the movements themselves are actually growing me, maturing my physiology in deepening my embodiment and my expression of, you know, whether you call it your soul or your spirit or your life purpose or what you like. More of that starts to get organically expressed as well. 

A: Well, it's a return to naturalness. There's a naturalness, like you said, you know, not having to have everything be volitional or intentional because, you know, what would it be like to instead just open your mouth and say the right thing or say the spontaneously correct thing in the moment, you know, that needs to be said, that creates that opportunity for you or, you know, allows, you know, a new person to come into your life or a person to leave your life, right? 

Like, what would it be like to live with that kind of like moment to moment presence? Like that's an, in a sense, I feel like what you're speaking of, you know, and I think that many thematic modalities can bring us towards this, but I can definitely see how you're speaking about TRE in terms of its influence on the subcortical parts of our nervous system really stimulate this because you don't have to do it volitionally. You set your body up to learn how to return to that unconscious releasing and reorganize it. 

R: Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, in, in Eastern traditions, there's the tradition of Wu Wei. This is not anything new. This is, you know, TRE is not new. We're just creating a new lens to explain things. So, you know, the ancient practice of Wu Wei, which is basically the art of non-doing, you know, everything about Zen, you know, I don't fire the arrow. 

The arrow fires me. So this is an ancient sort of principle. And so in the Western world, we talk about flow and flow states. Exactly what you're saying, that sense of going my cortex, you know, when you have that, those moments, whether they're the life altering peak performance states or whether it's just micro flow in your day to day, that sense that the thinking part of myself is not doing it anymore. I'm just watching my body. I remember playing a game of in Australia, we have AFL rules, rules football and, you know, to summarize, I'd say I played a game where I would say 150% better than I've ever been and I never played that way again. And I remember running along and just thinking like, I can't not, the ball just keeps coming to me. 

I'm trying to get rid of it because I'm tired and it would come back. And the research into flow states is all about, you know, the sense of there's a time often distorts. Sometimes it speeds up. Sometimes it slows down, but there's a sense that the doing part of myself is not doing it anymore. And for me, this is one of the things I do love is I haven't seen anything on the planet that's a more simple, easy way to actually fall into flow states. 

And this is the beauty when we're doing TRE or anything. It's like, if you're pandulating that moment when the body starts to move at the end of your hyperventilatory breath work session, when your body's breathing organically, that's when we're more into a flow state. Now, flow states often seen as something altered in a peak performance state. Flow states the state we grew up in. 

And so when we tremor, we have this experience of going, well, I lie down, my body starts to move. What do I do? What does my mind? 

What does my ego have to do? It's learning how to allow and the body starts to move. So effectively, the tremoring is a way of entraining and falling into flow states. And this is the critical thing about volitional because we don't make ourselves go to sleep. We create the conditions that our mind lets go. And it's the same thing with tremoring or any other practice. 

It's that moment when the body takes over, then we start to access flow. So once we learn how to do TRE or any other involuntary movement practice, we have this instant access to surrendering and letting the body flow, not just letting go and being calm, but letting the body move and bring us to life. So you can hear in my voice, it's like, it's why I'm so passionate about it because it's really this reawakening process so that we can use the term more naturally. We can be more organically ourselves, more free, more creative, more grounded, more connected to people and more expressive of joy and harmony and beauty. Right. 

A: Yeah. And also advocate for ourselves and push back when needed and have that strength and that conviction to speak up when we need to. Because like you said, it's always going to be a mixed bag this life. Like that naturalness sometimes comes forward with that innate pushiness that all humans have. You know, in my training, we talked about our innate, you know, pushing us, that force, that vigor that we have to go after what we want and to say, hey, no, that's mine. You can't have that, whatever it is, right? And that can be definitely part of this conversation too. 

R: Yeah, it's great. I'm really glad you raised that because again, a lot of people when we're very tight, like I'm someone who tends to be very tight and I have very strong boundaries. And so for me, when the body starts to move and that sort of thing, what tends to happen is I get softer in my boundaries and I'm a more open. Other people often have problems with being too open in their boundaries and they're too, you know, focused on other people. And what they will tend to find is that as their body organizes and strengthens itself that naturally they'll start to find, wow, I'm getting more connected to my boundaries. 

A: So again, I totally think of it just as like it's what you're describing is literally in people's tissues. You know, there's going to be people who are hypermobile and wiggly, right? And then there's going to be people who are stiff as a board and, you know, like real tight through their joints and it expresses, I mean, they've done a few, like, I don't know, correlations between like hypermobility and different kinds of like other types of issues like codependency and things like that, which are very fascinating, right? Where these things that we think of as mental or emotional or social are also very much physical. If you think about someone's knee bending backwards, which mine used to bend backwards like a banana, you know, did I have like boundaries in life? 

No, actually, I didn't really know where I end and the world begins just like I didn't know that my knee was bending backwards, you know, so it's very true. I think that our system, when we give it the space to balance out, it's going to balance itself out, right? And it's just about allowing and providing tools. So, you know, you have some tools for people who are listening. 

They're probably listening and going, OK, how do I sign up? How do I experience the what Amy experienced, you know, 35 minutes ago? So tell us a little bit about what you've created. 

R: Yeah, so look, if people are out there and, you know, I really do encourage you to explore and learn this because it's really a birthright that we all have access to this spontaneous movement response for, you know, whether it's releasing stress or supporting our life. So there's really probably, you know, two main ways to go about it. One is if you feel like you need support and help and framework, then you can find TRE providers all around the world. 

I think they're currently in about 85 or 86 countries and you can find a TRE provider at TREglobal.com. So they will, you know, they will sit with you. They'll guide you into the tremors. 

They'll teach you how to self-regulate it. So if you're someone with major history of trauma, mental health, physical health conditions, then great, go and find a provider and they'll get you set up. Now, it's not about you then being dependent upon them. 

They will empower you so you can use it on your own. But if you're someone who doesn't have any major history of mental health, you know, trauma, major conditions, during COVID, Amy, I lived in, based in Melbourne, the most locked down city in the world. And so I wasn't able to travel around and run my workshops and that sort of thing. So during that time, I actually created the world's first online TRE course. So that course is at TREcourse.com. And it's basic sort of thing. 

It was filmed on my iPhone and a bit of zoom and that sort of thing. So it's basic in terms of the tech. But what it has is sort of the framing and the information about, you know, where do the tremors fit in? It's paradigm, changing the paradigm understanding. And then it's got three guided sessions where I teach you how to access the tremor, but more importantly, then how to self-regulate it. So just as we did with you, you know, you bring the shaking on, you're like, I'm not doing that. 

You stop, slide the legs out. You're like, oh, I can actually control it. So you learn how to surrender, but from a state of being in control. And so by the end of three sessions, you've got everything you really need to know in terms of, you know, ongoing use advice. 

When do I use it? What to expect? What's normal? And, you know, my two golden rules really that it comes down to is if it's working for you, then keep going. 

And if it's not working for you, get help. But a lot of people now try theory because they've seen someone shaking online. They've seen a YouTube clip and they're like, oh, I can do that. I can hold that position and they do it. Now, if that works for you and you do that fantastic, go for it. But most of the time you see people with much bigger shaking and trembling because it looks more spectacular online. 

So that's what you see. And secondly, you don't get any of the information about self-regulation or the somatic regulation because often what will happen is we're tremoring. And part of my body just so I've got chronic jaw tension and clenching and brooksism and my teeth grind at night. I start tremoring. It feels great. My legs are moving. And then at some point it might be like my jaw starts to clench because it's holding on. 

I'm not even aware of it because I live with a tight jaw my whole life. And so we tremor past. We keep going with our ego wants to release more and we push versus learning to go, oh, hang on. My jaw is just giving me a little signal. It needs a break. This is quite intense. When we follow the body and regulate our somatic experience, it's not just about creating safety, which a lot of people focus on. 

By following the body, more of the body starts to move with less drama. And you mentioned when we were talking before the interview that sense of, oh, you know, I was expecting or there's a bit of an expectation. A lot of people like it's going to be cathartic. There's going to be big emotions. There's going to be trauma coming out. The longer I teach this process, the less I see that happening when people are deep. 

A: But here's the thing. I really think that it's because of how you are doing it. So I have to say, like I didn't know a ton about TRE. I was definitely really open to it because I understand it as a nervous system function. I mean, like I said, I see my clients do it all the time, you know, not all well regularly. And so I was very interested in it. But I had actually been turned off by a couple of people that I met in the United States who are talking about it in a much more of a catharsis based way. 

Who are kind of like, look what I can make happen in your body kind of way. I had seen some videos that were like, you know, 300 people on the floor and they're all shaking and crying and screaming. And this is how it was being advertised. So what I want to say is that I think that how you are talking about it and how you are teaching it is is is part of the result that you're getting. 

Because first of all, you have a very grounded understanding of this. Like I get a sense, you know, that you, you know, could train someone in this. I don't know if you train you train people in TRE. You understand this and you also understand that we don't have to go through the catharsis and the drama to get to the relaxation. But there are other people who might get trained in this who don't know that. And it's the same way with a bunch of other kind of modalities. They get trained in it, but they don't really get that they don't have to do it rough. Yeah. 

R: So look, this is this is one of the biggest problems we have in the TRE training world is because people like I've taught yoga. I've taught Pilates. I've taught breath work. I can teach people where to hold their legs and go into the tremoring. I would be 99.9% sure that that person, those people who are talking have not been trained as part of the global TRE training because that is not part of it. And so the biggest difficulty is we get people who say, this is 

A: TRE, but they're not actually certified in it, 

R: but they're not actually certified in it. And I would agree with you that initially how you are taught can be can be important for people to get that sense of safety and ground and this and all that sort of thing. But at the same time, once you've started accessing this response in your body, very quickly, you will realize that it's actually the safety inside you that is generating the movement. 

And so that need for external safety starts to fall away. And a great example. Last year, I was very blessed to be able to partner with the complex trauma Institute, which is a charity based in the UK. And so I ran a three sessions of online live online on zoom class with people living in Ukraine. We had 400 plus people in that session. I couldn't see any of those people. So all I kept doing was guiding them and it was all done through translators as well. 

And out of those 400 people who were tremoring, the number of people who reported any sort of sense of feeling unsafe and anxiety or overwhelm was zero. When I started my online course, one of the even in the theory community people will you can't teach it. You can't let people learn online on their own. You have to have someone there to keep you safe. Of those 14,000 people who've enrolled in the course, Amy, I have had zero, not one person contact me saying I felt unsafe or I felt overwhelmed partly because the course has a screening tool, partly because it guides you if you are feeling unsafe, go and learn with a provider. But my point that I'm wanting to make really clearly to people here is there is a lot of stigma out there and there are other people who aren't trained in theory saying, oh, it's dangerous and it's this and that. What they're effectively saying is when you let go, if you let your body wisdom lead you, that's dangerous. That's really what they're saying. 

It says more about them and their lack of connection to the real depth and the embodied grounded wisdom in the body. That's when people are having those sense of it's not safe. Your body's not safe. Effectively, they're saying if you let your body lead, it's not safe. 

They're saying inside your body is danger. That's more a reflection of them. So long-winded. Sorry. Get on get a bit hyped up because it's one of the frustrations in the. 

A: I'm glad I brought it up because like, you know, I, I definitely appreciate all of the ways that you have explained this. I feel like I have a deeper understanding of it, but you know, there's a challenge with people who don't really know what they're talking about talking a lot sometimes, you know, David. 

And, and I feel that it's important for people to understand the distinction to, you know, that you are teaching in the way you are teaching, you know, and I just experienced it, you know, you, you can also in your energy of teaching it really give that space that allows the person allows them to follow, you know, some people in their energy. They haven't had enough transformation internally. There's a sense, even though they're saying, Oh yeah, you can come out whenever you want to. 

There's a challenge in their voice or there's an energy that they're carrying that says, but you're kind of weak if you do. I didn't get any of that from you. I got such openness from you. I got such, you know, grace from you. And that's really what we want from somatic practitioners is that they are not carrying some kind of pressure within themselves that then gets put on the students. Right. 

R: Absolutely. And again, this is what I love about that question I started with. So for all the somatic therapists out there, I want you to right now sit there and pay attention to the tension and unresolved trauma that you are carrying that you are not yet aware of. This is why I like to say if you are not letting your body spontaneously move, it's a form of somatic hygiene. This is the thing like, yeah, I'm feeling grounded in that. 

But in 10 years, I'm going to be so much more grounded as my body keeps unwinding and I'm not aware of the parts of me that are not grounded yet. And part of the beauty for this. And certainly, you know, what I've had to develop because when I first learned to area was like, Oh, you got to make sure you regulate and I have to co regulate to make sure you're safe. And the reason I'm so much more grounded in this is because when we get deeply embodied with the reality of the wisdom in the movements, then when I'm teaching you, I'm not thinking about I've got to connect you and I've got to make you feel safe. Right. Right. 

I got to sell this to you. I'm connecting you to the movements because I know those movements are safe because I know in my body and having taught so many people. So it's even about that's that's the beauty is like, yeah, if you're nervous. Yeah, yeah. First of all, you think I'm the one supporting you. 

Great. But very quickly when you stop and start and you have the experience you're like, hang on, I can trust my body. I can truly trust my body. I can let go of my need to cognitively regulate to cognitively self regulate. And that's where the freedom is because then we'll, oh my God, my body is a safe place. 

Not your body will be a safe place, but you have to regulate whether you get there. You have to have me to teach you how to resource and type and do all that stuff. When we get connected to the reality of the safety and the freedom of our body, all of that stuff, it can be useful like we regulate in TREs like, wow, my jaw locked on. I have a little break. But we start to get connected to the freedom impulse in our body where it's not up to my ego to regulate everything. My body, my life. Yeah, that's where the real freedom comes. Absolutely. 

A: And I mean that you create a space for other people to trust their bodies is a reflection of you trusting your body and frankly you trust their body too. And I feel the same way with my clients. Like I trust your body to do what it needs to do in our session. You know, if I were you or my client, like I would trust, you know, whatever was showing up in your body if it was emotion or if it was shaking or if it was some other kind of movement or noise that needed to occur, you know, or you just had to suddenly talk about your dog for 10 minutes like whatever is there like I trust your body and that's the presence that I really want. 

You know, like you said there's somatic therapists out there. They need to develop that trust within themselves. I mean, I needed to develop that to be able to trust the other person who's sitting in front of me that and then again that helps us relax because we realize, oh wait, I don't have to control this at all. I don't have to. I have to all I could do is hold the space and use the tools and show up when I'm asked to show up, you know, in the way that I've been trained to show up and the other person is actually leading this whole thing. 

R: Yeah, and I love you saying that and for me, you know, be really clear is like if I think I could tell you lots of stories where I wasn't grounded where I wasn't embodied where I did. 

No, it's a journey that I've had to had to go on. And there's that reality of the you know I like to talk about that sense of the therapist out there or the body was you know this is of neuro expressions. There's a lot of focus on neuroception like what am I picking up what am I sensing. But at the same time, my body is neuro expressing to yours in my process in the quality of my voice. You know, the squeezing in my piriformis right now, that is being communicated to the other body any level of unconscious tension that is communicating. 

So it's a it's a journey. You know, when I started, I didn't have this level of embodied, you know, connection to the trust in the in the movements, you know, I would watch David Burcelli I'll never forget Amy I was filming a guy. This is one of the first times David came out this guy had come to a workshop he had these funny movements and he came to do a one on one session so I'm filming this one on one session with David working with this guy's body. So he's lying on his back his knees are flapping around. And then all of a sudden his body like bends up into a V like a sort of Pilates V. And it starts rocking side to side and his voice is like, and there's this yelling and it's like super intense. And I remember looking through the camera and thinking, holy shit, if I was here on my own, I would be freaking out now but I'm looking at David Burcelli who's running the session is 100% calm. 

I'm like, well, if he's calm, it must be calm. And so of course, and then the body let's go and at release and the guy starts laughing his head off and then it happens again. So my point there was that when I was first introduced to was it wasn't about going, I believe and trust in the safety but honoring that that's a real experience, but there's still parts of me that I know if it gets to a certain level I'm going to be like, oh, that's too much for me. Can you stop. So this sense that you know I was in that sense following David Burcelli's body. 

And I'm looking at him, but we're you're the teacher and you are calm so I don't need to stress. And then gradually over time it's like right well I can offer that to other people. But the more and more I get to and David Burcelli has always said this from the very beginning is in theory, the tremors are the therapist. So we're connecting people with their movements and so that's why for me as I've developed the skills my passion is connecting saying yeah you don't need me. 

You might think you need me initially. But once you start to let the body move, you're going to start to experience what I experienced and what we've seen thousands of people all around the world is it's safe the body's moving the safety is moving you. Time to let go and just let your body pulsate back to life. Beautiful. 

A: Well we are on the same mission free your coma free yourself you are your liberation starts inside within you. It was your birth right and you just were never taught these things right and you know as you said it's so much of you know the embodied wisdom comes from experience it comes from having those moments like you did watching the guy, you know in that really intense thing and seeing someone else be calm about it and seeing someone else be regulated about it to trust that whatever is going to occur right? 

And I mean that goes right into this whole idea of re parenting ourselves right that a lot of people are talking about is that some of us didn't have those those parents or those people in our lives who could stay calm in a crisis. And so we learned that anything are shaking of our bodies that you know shrill sound of our voice or whatever it is is dangerous, you know, and needs to be suppressed and contained and so there's there's a whole lot of possibility here and this conversation I've really really appreciated your, you know everything that you shared in the approach that you're taking on this I'm very much in support of what you're doing. 

R: Thank you likewise and I yeah that the beauty beautiful thing is the soma has come into the trauma world the body has been the focus but at the moment if you look at all the book titles it's generally still about the body's trauma response. And I'll never forget David Burcelli again saying you know said yeah sure traumas in the body but so is safety underneath the trauma. 

A: Joy and pleasure. Yeah, is if that's. Look, yeah thanks thanks for having me I don't know if I mentioned the online course if there are people who want to read it I think I forgot to mention it it's just we did we talked about it so theory course.com. 

R: It'll be in the show notes to everybody check out the show notes you'll find the links for that. And do you have a mailing list or anything you want to include for people as well if they're curious about me, I do have some Australian listeners who might be interested in workshops. 

R: Yeah, I do look if you go to Terry Australia, you can sign up for my newsletter there I do offer telehealth consults or that I don't do much of that so much there but yeah so Terry Australia and the other thing is on the Terry Australia website there's heaps of great resources like, you know, Terry for first responders or for military veterans, lots of videos and stuff it's put a lot of time and effort into putting some really good information in their Terry for birth, for example, or for young people. 

A: So, it is a really great resource if you want to, if you want to go and get information and the other thing I do want to just flag, I'm used that one of the beauties about the online courses if you are working with people and people are going to benefit from it you don't necessarily have to go and do the training to become a Terry provider you can just say to your people hey you know go and check this out there's you know the first few videos are free so people can check it out if they don't like it that's fine. 

So it's a great resource rather than practitioners saying I need to go and learn how to manually release the body and study anatomy. All you really need to do is connect people and say hey, if I can get these people tremoring between my sessions. It's going to turbo charge all the other work you do whether that's cognitively directed whether it's talk therapy whether it's movement whether it's expression whether it's dance. 

So you don't necessarily have to become an Terry was set up not to be a therapeutic model. This is the whole key it's not about going I need to learn it so it can be another tool in my tool bag so I can charge you to pay. It's going no I just need to collect connect my clients to it so they can be empowered with it. It's going to support enhance everything they're doing but everything we also doing as practitioners to so it's a really easy efficient and very cheap way of empowering people with it. 

Beautiful. Well everybody check out that resource that the course sounds very thorough and thank you so much Richmond for coming on and sharing what you're up to sharing about Terry at such the depth that you are. You know that you know of it because I feel like anybody who listened to this is going to be able to tell other people what Terry is a lot more accurately than whatever they read on the Internet. 

R: Yeah, thanks for having me Amy and yet may everyone so maybe you know free free to move and free to express so we can all live freelives. 

A: Amen. Thank you. 

A: Hey there friends. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I would love to hear your thoughts. Follow me on Instagram @AimeeTakaya and send me a DM about this episode. I'd like to thank you for being part of the somatic revolution and if you'd like to support the podcast and help more people learn about somatics consider leaving a review or a rating. 

And finally if you'd like to have the experience of relief in your tight hips or back and learn to understand what your body is really saying to you visit youcanfreeyoursoma.com. I can't wait to share with you what is truly possible. Bye for now.