Why Breath Work Made My Anxiety Worse: Finding the Right Somatic Practice with Beverly Atkins

<p>Beverly Atkins is the founder of pauseture, a mobile app that brings the Feldenkrais method, one of the most powerful and least known somatic practices in the world, to people who need it. She stumbled into it after putting her back out and not being able to walk upright for three weeks. What she found changed not just her back, but her relationship with her body, her food, her emotions, and her entire nervous system.</p><p>I have been using the app myself and I cannot recommend it enough. So we sat down to talk about all of it.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>This episode is for you if:</strong></p><ul><li>You feel disconnected from your body and live mostly in your head</li><li>You have tried meditation or breath work and it made your anxiety worse, not better</li><li>You are in recovery and need something gentle to replace compulsive exercise</li><li>You carry tension, chronic pain or bracing in your body that nothing seems to shift</li><li>You want to understand how stored trauma shows up physically and how movement can release it</li><li>You are curious about somatic healing but don&#39;t know where to start</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>In this episode, we cover:</strong></p><p>✨ Beverly&#39;s personal story of body hatred, extreme exercise, back injury and how she accidentally found the Feldenkrais method</p><p>✨ What the Feldenkrais method actually is, and why it is so different from yoga, pilates or conventional exercise</p><p>✨ Why the lessons ask you to close your eyes, go slowly and stop comparing yourself to anyone else</p><p>✨ How 24 days of gentle movement lessons changed Beverly&#39;s relationship with food at her calorie-abundant workplace</p><p>✨ Why Beverly stopped working out entirely for 18 months and what happened when she returned to movement</p><p>✨ Why traditional meditation and breath work made Beverly&#39;s anxiety worse, and why movement meditation worked instead</p><p>✨ How the method builds neuroplasticity and rewires habitual patterns in the brain</p><p>✨ Why the nervous system must feel safe before it can learn anything new</p><p>✨ The pelvis, trauma and bracing: what Beverly witnessed in her private practice with clients who had experienced sexual abuse</p><p>✨ Interoception and proprioception: noticing how you feel inside your body and how you fit in the world around you</p><p>✨ How this work can support body image and body dysmorphia by helping you sense your body accurately rather than just see it</p><p>✨ Why going smaller