Dexter and Alessandrina

I spent years working with breath and movement to regulate my nervous system, unkowingly missing the most direct pathway available: the vagus nerve itself, accessible through intentional touch at specific points on your face, neck, and chest.

Direct neuromodulation is different from other regulation practices because you're not working indirectly through signals. You're accessing the vagus nerve directly through massage and pressure where it runs close to the surface, creating immediate measurable changes in autonomic tone.

In this post, I share the facial and vagal massage techniques that have become fundamental parts of my daily practice, including the neuroscience behind why they’re so effective, specific access points on your body, and how to build a consistent neuromodulation practice that expands your window of tolerance over time.

Neuromodulation will help you partner with your nervous system through direct engagement, supporting its natural movement toward regulation through the pathways that have been there your entire life, waiting for your loving attention and care.

Link in bio on Instagram, scan the QR code on the image, or use this link:
restplaylove.com/post/Neuromodulation-Through-Touc…
🤍

#nervousgystemregulation #vagusnerve #neuromodulation #somatichealing #traumarecovery #polyvagaltheory #vagalstimulation #nervoussystemhealing #embodiedhealing #facialmassage #parasympatheticnervoussystem #traumainformedcare #somaticpractices #windowoftolerance #autonomicnervoussystem #bodybasedhealing #regulationtools #vagaltone #nervousgystemtools #healingtrauma

4 days ago | [YT] | 5

Dexter and Alessandrina

How Presence Teaches Presence: The Neuroscience of Co-Regulation

How Connection Shapes the Nervous System

Your nervous system doesn't respond to words. It responds to presence.

You cannot think your way into feeling safe or use logic to force yourself out of anxiety. The part of your brain that registers safety operates beneath language. It responds to what it senses in the bodies around it through a process called neuroception.

This is co-regulation. One nervous system lending its calm to another, creating the conditions where healing becomes possible. Not through advice or solutions, but through regulated presence.

If you grew up around chronic stress, your body learned dysregulation the same way through repeated experience. Your hypervigilance wasn't a flaw. It was a brilliant adaptation to your environment.

The wonderful news is that it can be rewired.

Through therapy or coaching, somatic practices, and being in the presence of people whose nervous systems are steadier than yours. Through thousands of small moments where your body learns that safety is possible and that connection can be safe.

This is how regulation spreads. One nervous system at a time, learning safety through the lived experience of being near someone who models and embodies it.

Your regulated presence is not just a gift to others. It's proof that you’ve become the safe person your nervous system needed all along.

Read the full post to understand how co-regulation works and why your presence matters more than your words ever could. Link in bio on Instagram, or scan the QR code, or use this link: restplaylove.com/post/The-Neuroscience-of-coregula…

#nervousystemhealing #coregulation #polyvagaltheory #traumahealing #somatichealing #traumainformed #nervoussystemregulation #attachmenttheory #healingtrauma #embodiment #ventralvagal #windowoftolerance #traumarecovery #somatictherapy #regulatednervoussystem #traumawork #healinginrelationship #neuroscience #mindbodyhealing #traumasurvivor #innerchildhealing #breathwork #polyvagal #somaticexperiencing #safetyfirst #nervoussystem #mentalhealthawareness #healingjourney #regulationskills #attachmenthealing

5 days ago | [YT] | 8

Dexter and Alessandrina

What if this year didn’t ask you to become someone else, but invited you to come home to yourself and love yourself more?

This kind of quiet transformation doesn’t rely on affirmations or the performance of calm, but opens into a gentle, embodied practice of meeting yourself in the moments you are dysregulated, overwhelmed, shut down, or doing your best to navigate the state you are in without abandoning yourself.

The reflections in this blog post offer a pathway into a form of self-love that your nervous system can feel and recognize, one that listens to internal signals rather than overriding them and creates inner safety through attunement and care rather than pressure or force.

If you’ve been living inside patterns of protection, performance, or constant pushing through, this is an invitation to soften your grip and consider what becomes possible when you stop trying to regulate yourself into a different version of who you are.

You can read the full blog post using this link: restplaylove.com/post/new-year-resolutions-changin…, scan the QR code on the image, or click on the link in the bio if on Instagram.

#nervoussystemregulation
#cominghometoyourself
#traumainformed
#embodiedhealing
#selfregulation
#gentleselflove
#somaticwisdom
#healingwithoutforce
#windowoftolerance
#restorativepresence
#beautifulhuman

1 week ago | [YT] | 4

Dexter and Alessandrina

A fresh start in 2026...

I've been thinking about how our brains are already writing the script for next year and how that's always happening in the background when we default to old ways of thinking and being. The default mode network runs constantly in the background, narrating your life based on what's already happened. It's efficient, but it also keeps you recreating the same patterns, the same responses, the same version of yourself unless you intentionally become aware of it and choose to interrupt it.

Creating new neural pathways isn't a process of positive thinking or vision boards (though a good vision board is also a very effective tool for rewiring the brain and manifesting our intentions). Laying down new neural pathways requires you repeatedly directing your attention toward who you're becoming, not who you've been. Your brain literally rewires based on where you place your focus and attention.

When you imagine yourself in 2026, what does that version of you feel like in your body? Not just what you're doing or achieving, but how you're showing up and how that feels. What's different in the way you breathe? The way you move through a room? The way you respond when life challenges you?

What if you gave yourself permission to be curious about that new person you wish to become? To practice being this new you, even just for a few minutes a day?

You don't close the gap between who you are now and who you're becoming by force. You close it by where you choose to place your attention, through repetition, and with your gentle and unwavering insistence that something new is possible for you in the future, a future that is created with every thought and action you choose from moment to moment.

In recreating yourself, you don't have to have it all figured out right now. You just have to be willing to look forward with intention and envision the potential you wish to harness.

How do you envision recreating yourself in 2026?

#2026vision #neuroscience #neuroplasticity #defaultmodenetwork #freshstart #intentionalliving #mindfulness #personalgrowth #transformation #selfawareness #embodiment #brainscience #healing #evolving #newyou #newyearresolution #2026

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 7

Dexter and Alessandrina

The holidays carry their own particular pressures. The pace quickens, expectations layer on top of what you were already handling, and your body absorbs the collective intensity while you're doing your best to stay present and connected.

If you've noticed yourself feeling stretched thin, reactive, or running on fumes, that's your nervous system signaling it needs more support than it's currently receiving.

I'm sharing a few resources that might help:

🎧 A guided meditation using heart-brain coherence for when the holiday intensity is landing hard in your system (Youtube channel link in bio: https://youtu.be/QLzR5-D55cM)

📝 The self-regulation tools I use most when my nervous system needs support (practical, body-based practices for real-time moments) (blog link also in bio: restplaylove.com/post/my-favorite-self-regulation-…)

💙 The Beautifully Regulated Package: 3 sessions of deep somatic and nervous system work to help you shift out of stress patterns and into a steadier, more restful rhythm. 20% off through the end of the year with code GENTLEHOLIDAY20 (Session scheduling link in bio: restplaylove.com/services)

You don't need to wait until everything starts to settle to tend to what your body is asking for. You can begin exactly where you are right now.

Links in bio, or message me with questions about what might support you right now.

#nervousystemregulation #somatichealing #burnoutrecovery #traumahealing #embodiment #selfregulation #nervousystemsupport #polyvagaltheory #HSP #ADHDsupport #traumainformed #somaticwork #restplaylove #beautifulhumanhealing

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

Dexter and Alessandrina

After decades of working with my own nervous system and supporting others in their regulation practice, I've gathered a collection of tools and techniques that have genuinely changed how I meet myself in dysregulation.

These aren't generic techniques I think should work. They're the practices that have actually brought me back when anxiety has my heart racing, when every part of me wanted to shut down in difficult conversations, or when I realized I'd been dissociated for hours without knowing it.

In this post, I'm sharing the tools I return to most: voo breathing for when I need to shift my state without forcing anything, body scans with pendulation that taught me my body isn't just one experience of pain, humming that works when nothing else does, shaking to discharge activation, cold water for shutdown, naming what's happening in relationships so I don't react and spin out of control, and the micro-moments of presence that make consistent nervous system care possible.

Your nervous system is different from mine. What regulates me might activate you. But I'm sharing these in hope that something here resonates with you and gives you a new way to meet yourself and come back home to regulation in your own timing.

Link in bio to read the full post on Instagram or simply scan the QR code.
:
#selfregulation #nervoussystemhealing #somatichealing #polyvagaltheory #traumahealing #embodiedhealing #nervoussystemregulation #traumarecovery #somaticpractices #vagusnerve #windowoftolerance #nervoussystempractices #regulationtools #breathwork #bodyawareness #healingtrauma #somaticexperiencing #nervousystemcare

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 4

Dexter and Alessandrina

As the year comes to a close, I find myself reflecting and feeling deeply grateful for the humans who show up with care, presence, and tenderness, especially in seasons that ask more of us than we expected.

This message is a very small offering of appreciation, a pause to acknowledge the quiet ways we support one another, the love that is felt even beneath words, and the healing that happens in conscious and loving relationship.

From us at Beautiful Human, thank you for being here, for walking alongside us, and for being part of a community rooted in gentleness, connection, and humanity and for supporting and spreading our common message into the world. Every single one of your comments and donations on our meditations deeply touches and warms our heart.

Wishing you a season of rest, warmth, and moments that feel like coming home.

Happy Holidays 🤍

#BeautifulHuman
#HappyHolidays
#SeasonOfRest
#GentleLiving
#NervousSystemCare
#EmbodiedHealing
#TraumaInformed
#PresenceOverPerfection
#SlowDownSeason
#GratitudePractice
#CommunityCare
#HumanConnection

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 5

Dexter and Alessandrina

Today is Day 7 of our 14-Day Self-Regulation Challenge, and I want to remind you of an herbal ally that's been foundational in my own nervous system practice, especially during the holiday season when our systems can feel even more stretched than the often already are.

Emotional Ease from Orion Herbs is my go-to herbal support when I feel my window of tolerance narrowing. I also use it whenever I start to feel my emotions intensifying and I need support staying present with what's arising without tipping into dysregulation.

This natural formula has been in my daily practice for almost 15 years now, and it's what I turn to during the challenging moments when my system needs extra support.

The holidays can bring up a lot in our nervous system. The family dynamics, old patterns, grief, overstimulation, and the pressure to feel and show up a certain way all add up to the strain that's brought up by having to respond to a myriad of internal and external stimuli .

So if you're finding that this season is activating your nervous system or you know that it might as we move closer to the end of the year, having herbal support can make a real difference in how you meet those challenges.

Emotional Ease helps your nervous system metabolize emotions the way it's designed to, by helping you process rather than suppress what's being kicked up and stay present rather than collapse or dissociate. This formula is safe and includes herbs like motherwort, passionflower, and hawthorn that have been used for centuries to ease emotional distress while maintaining presence and clarity.

This formula has carried me through countless challenging moments on my own healing journey, and I've seen it support many of my clients as they navigate difficult periods while doing deep nervous system work.

If you need some nervous system support during this holiday period, scan the QR code in the slides or use this link: orionherbs.com/?sca_ref=5129207.tPHLelOfRz 

This is an affiliate link, which means I receive a small percentage of any purchase you make through this link. This helps support the free resources and content I create while connecting you with products I genuinely use and trust in my own healing. #emotions

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3 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

Dexter and Alessandrina

Our live session on self-regulation brought together teaching, practice, and community exploration in a way that deepened the work we've been doing throughout our self-regulation campaign that still runs until December 28th.

If you weren't able to attend or if you want to revisit what we explored, the full recording is now available to watch on YouTube.

This session offers both intellectual understanding and embodied practice. You'll leave with a clearer grasp of how self-regulation develops, why it's important, what gets in the way, and most importantly, how to work with your own nervous system to build greater capacity, flexibility, and resilience for being with life's full spectrum.

The practices are gentle, accessible, and designed to meet you wherever your nervous system is right now. You don't need to be in a regulated state to begin working with regulation. You start exactly where you are and build from there.

Access the recording through the QR code or use this link: . This is yours to enjoy and revisit as often as it serves and supports you. (Link: https://youtu.be/p-IRv81ddKg)

#SelfRegulation #LiveRecording #NervousSystemHealing #SomaticPractice #TraumaInformed #RegulationSkills #EmbodiedLearning #HealingResources #OnDemand #BeautifulHuman #NervousSystemSupport #ConsciousHealing

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3 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

Dexter and Alessandrina

Join Me: 14 Days of Self-Regulation Practice

Starting Monday, December 15th, we're beginning a 14-day practice challenge focused on embodied self-regulation.

Each day, I'll share one simple practice through a short reel that you can do in the moment and integrate into your daily life over time.

All the techniques are simple and don't require any prior knowledge, training, or special equipment. They're accessible, evidence-based practices drawn from somatic psychology, polyvagal theory, attachment theory, and nervous system science.

Each practice is designed to help you work directly with your autonomic state, build regulation capacity and flexibility, and develop a more attuned relationship with your own nervous system and body.

The practices will build on each other, supporting you in expanding your window of tolerance, strengthening distress tolerance, and developing sustainable regulation skills and nervous system resilience.

Some practices focus on grounding and orientation, some on working with breath and rhythm, some on gentle movement and discharge, and some on building internal resources.

You can join at any point and do the practices in whatever order best supports you, allowing yourself to learn what works for you through experimentation.

The invitation is simply to explore the practices with playful curiosity, and notice what you discover.

Throughout those 14 days, I'll be doing these practices alongside you, exploring what emerges when we commit to daily nervous system care for a full two weeks.

On Thursday, December 18th at 1pm PST, we'll have an opportunity to practice together, in community, and you'll get to ask any questions you may have about self-regulation.

Scan the QR code to join the challenge for a chance to win a free session or a half-day VIP Retreat in Sedona.

#SelfRegulationChallenge #14DayChallenge #NervousSystemHealing #DailyPractice #SomaticPractice #TraumaInformed #RegulationSkills #MindBodyHealing #HealingJourney #EmbodiedPractice #BeautifulHuman #CommunityHealing #ConsciousPractice #NervousSystemSupport

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1 month ago | [YT] | 2