Tag: healing

Posted on

Your Heart Is Not a Pump: Rethinking Circulation, Resonance, and Healing

Devon Hornby, LMT, ABT

We’ve long been taught that the heart is a mechanical pump—a pressure valve that pushes blood through miles of vessels like a hydraulic machine. This idea, while useful for certain models of circulation, is limited. It misses the remarkable intelligence of our bodies, the deeper rhythms of life, and the actual sequence of events that shape the human embryo.

In the earliest stages of development, blood begins to move before the heart is fully formed (Taber 2001; Brill and Cohen 2001; Pape and Wigglesworth 1978). This circulation is not driven by muscular contraction but by resonance, charge differentials, and the inherent motion of fluid. The movement appears to arise from the field itself—a kind of organizing principle that guides both structure and function.

Spanish cardiologist Francisco Torrent-Guasp spent decades dissecting hearts and discovered something the textbooks had overlooked: the heart is not a collection of chambers but a single continuous band of muscle folded into a helical spiral. He called it the Helical Ventricular Myocardial Band (Torrent-Guasp 2001). This structure doesn’t “pump” in the traditional sense. Instead, it creates a vortex-like action, producing suction and torque to enhance blood flow (Buckberg et al. 2008).

If this is true, then circulation is not merely about pressure, but about wave dynamics, resonance, and flow. Blood is a living fluid. It moves in spirals, obeying principles of coherence that resemble natural phenomena—from the spiraling of galaxies to the rotation of weather systems.

In biodynamic craniosacral therapy (BCST), practitioners attune to these same deep tides. The “long tide” and “mid tide” felt in a session are believed to be expressions of these original ordering forces that guide embryological development and sustain health throughout life (Jealous 2010; Sills 2004; Brierley 2012). BCST doesn’t manipulate tissue; it listens to the body’s own subtle organizing intelligence.

Interestingly, the electromagnetic field of the heart has also been well documented. The HeartMath Institute has shown that the heart generates a toroidal electromagnetic field that can be measured several feet from the body (McCraty et al. 2009). This field modulates and is modulated by emotion, breath, thought, and the nervous system. It even syncs with other people’s fields in states of empathy or coherence.

Recent research also shows that slow, conscious breathing affects the vagus nerve and helps regulate heart rhythm, creating coherence in both the cardiovascular and nervous systems (Russo, Santarelli, and O’Rourke 2017).

What if our view of the heart could evolve to include this science—alongside the traditional model? What if we imagined the heart not just as a machine, but as a resonating center—a gateway between physiology and perception, tissue and field?

When we work with the body through gentle awareness, presence, and respect for these natural rhythms, something opens. The system reorients. Health re-emerges, not through force, but through resonance.

Not a pump. A vortex. A tuning instrument. A field.

References (Chicago Author-Date)

Brill, R. W., and E. A. Cohen. 2001. The Embryonic Development of the Cardiovascular System. In Cardiovascular Physiology.

Buckberg, Gerald D., Francisco Torrent-Guasp, David C. Coghlan, and Oscar N. Hoffman. 2008. “The Structure and Function of the Helical Heart: A Review of Torrent-Guasp’s Model and Its Implications for Clinical Practice.” European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery 33(3): 401–408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejcts.2007.11.021.

Brierley, James. 2012. Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, Volume 1: The Heart of Listening. East Sussex: Lotus Publishing.

Jealous, James S. 2010. The Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy Primer. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

McCraty, Rollin, Mike Atkinson, Dana Tomasino, and Raymond Trevor Bradley. 2009. “The Coherent Heart: Heart–Brain Interactions, Psychophysiological Coherence, and the Emergence of System-Wide Order.” Integral Review 5(2): 10–115. https://www.heartmath.org/assets/uploads/2015/01/coherent-heart.pdf.

Pape, K. E., and J. S. Wigglesworth. 1978. The Fetal Circulation: Normal and Abnormal. Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers.

Russo, Marco A., Domenico M. Santarelli, and David O’Rourke. 2017. “The Physiological Effects of Slow Breathing in the Healthy Human.” Breathe 13(4): 298–309. https://doi.org/10.1183/20734735.009817.

Sills, Franklyn. 2004. The Polarity Process: Energy as a Healing Art. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

Taber, Larry A. 2001. “Biomechanics of Cardiovascular Development.” Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering 3: 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.bioeng.3.1.1.Torrent-Guasp, Francisco. 2001. “The Structure and Function of the Helical Heart and Its Buttress Wrapping. I. The Normal Heart.” Seminars in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery 13(4): 301–319. https://doi.org/10.1053/stcs.2001.29845.

Posted on

The Problem with Biohacking: Why True Healing Can’t Be Hacked

Devon Hornby LMT, ABT

In a world increasingly obsessed with optimization, speed, and performance, biohacking has emerged as a seductive promise. With nootropics, red light panels, smart supplements, microdosing, cryotherapy, and quantified self-tracking, the modern human is invited to become more: more focused, more efficient, more energized. But at what cost?

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to feel better, perform better, or live longer, we must ask: are we hacking our way into health, or away from healing?

Healing Is Not a Shortcut

True healing—deep, integrative, lasting healing—does not arrive in a capsule, a wearable, or a cold plunge. It arises slowly, over time, through relationship: with body, with Earth, with ancestry, with breath, with the quiet and discomfort that modern life often rushes to avoid.

Biohacking promises results without reverence. It replaces the cyclical intelligence of nature with the logic of domination and manipulation—improving parts without addressing the whole. We track our sleep but ignore our dreams. We monitor HRV but avoid the emotional labor that shapes the nervous system. We boost cognition while never asking why our minds are exhausted in the first place.

It’s healing as conquest, rather than healing as listening.

The Wisdom of Slow Medicine

There is a lineage of healing that stretches back through time—through herbalism, bodywork, ancestral movement, meditation, somatic unwinding. This path teaches that we are not machines to optimize but living, sensing systems to tend with care.

In this tradition, discomfort isn’t a bug to be fixed—it’s a teacher. Fatigue isn’t just a performance glitch—it’s a message. Pain is not a nuisance to override—it’s a portal to presence.

These are not fast fixes. They don’t promise ROI. They ask us to sit with ourselves, to slow down, to return to what we’ve been taught to override. But they offer something biohacking can’t: wholeness. Soul. Belonging.

What We Lose When We Hack

Biohacking, in its commodified form, severs us from nature’s deeper rhythms. It flattens healing into a set of metrics and upgrades, replacing humility with novelty, and soul with spectacle. In doing so, it risks building a shiny tower of performance on top of unprocessed pain, spiritual disconnection, and cultural amnesia.

Yes, tools have their place. But without soul, without slowness, without a rooted understanding of ourselves as part of something ancient and alive, they’re just more ways to bypass the deeper work.

An Invitation Back

This isn’t a purist rejection of modern tools. It’s a call to root them in something wiser. To remember that healing is not a hack, it’s a homecoming.

A homecoming to your breath. To your grief. To your community. To nature’s slow medicine. Because in the end, the deepest healing can’t be measured in data—it’s felt in the body, in silence, in the soul’s return.

Optional References / Further Reading:

  • Maté, Gabor. When the Body Says No (on psychosomatic roots of illness)
  • Illich, Ivan. Medical Nemesis (on the institutionalization of healing)
  • Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass (on indigenous ecological wisdom)
  • Cohen, Bonnie Gintis. Engaging the Movement of Life (on osteopathy and relational healing)
  • Porges, Stephen. The Polyvagal Theory (on nervous system regulation and safety)
Posted on

Soothing the System: Simple Steps to Overcome Overwhelm in a Time of Division

How Food, Movement, Mindfulness, and Media Boundaries Can Help You Stay Regulated and Rooted

These days, it’s hard to scroll, watch, or even walk through the world without being bombarded by tension. The headlines are loud. Conversations are charged. Social feeds overflow with outrage, fear, and argument. Even well-meaning discussions can leave us feeling frazzled or shut down. Many people report feeling emotionally exhausted, socially avoidant, and physically unwell—without even realizing that it’s not just the news. It’s what constant exposure to conflict does to the nervous system.

When our bodies register this kind of tension—especially on a daily basis—it can create a state of chronic overwhelm. The good news? We don’t have to consume it all. And we don’t have to fix the world before we help ourselves feel safe, connected, and grounded again.

Here are a few simple, holistic ways to begin unwinding social stress and media-induced overload.

1. A Media Diet: Protect Your Attention Like It’s Sacred

Your attention is not just a mental resource—it’s a physiological one. Every headline, scroll, or heated comment thread is a stimulus. And your nervous system takes it all in. Just like food, what you consume digitally either nourishes or inflames you.

Start here:

  • Set clear limits: Check the news at a specific time each day—ideally not first thing in the morning or right before bed.
  • Curate your feed: Unfollow accounts that trigger fear, anger, or dread. Seek out voices that soothe, inform, or uplift without inflaming.
  • Unplug regularly: Try “media fasts”—a full day offline each week, or a few hours each day when no screens are allowed.
  • Reclaim your rhythm: Replace media time with music, nature, journaling, or connecting with someone in person.

When we step out of the 24/7 information stream, our body begins to remember what calm feels like.

2. Eat to Reduce Inflammation and Rebuild Resilience

Chronic stress—especially the kind that comes from constant social friction—creates inflammation in the body. Many of us unknowingly add to it by eating foods that keep us inflamed, anxious, or dysregulated.

Focus on foods that calm and stabilize:

  • Anti-inflammatory diets like AIP, Paleo, or Pegan can soothe your system. Emphasize leafy greens, wild or pastured proteins, healthy fats, berries, and broth.
  • Minimize stimulants like caffeine and sugar during high-stress periods.
  • Warm, cooked meals can be grounding, especially when digestion feels sensitive.

Try noticing how your body and mood feel after eating: Do you feel clear, warm, steady—or scattered and spiked?

3. Gentle Movement to Restore Trust in the World

When the world feels unsafe or overwhelming, the body contracts. Movement—done gently and intentionally—sends the opposite message: I am here. I am safe. I can move and breathe and be.

Supportive options:

  • Walking outside (without a podcast or phone) gives your nervous system a chance to process and regulate.
  • Qigong, tai chi, or somatic movement restore a felt sense of flow and ease.
  • Stretching or shaking can help discharge tension you’ve picked up from the day.

Movement reconnects us with the present moment—away from screens, arguments, and abstractions—and into the immediacy of breath, body, and sensation.

4. Mindfulness for Social Recovery

You don’t have to meditate like a monk to benefit from mindfulness. In fact, when you’re socially overstimulated, smaller, somatic practices often work better.

Try this:

  • Orienting practice: Let your eyes gently scan your space. Name a few things you see, hear, and feel. This brings your system out of threat mode.
  • Havening touch: Lightly stroke your arms, face, or hands while breathing slowly. This self-soothing technique activates safety pathways in the brain.
  • Part work or inquiry: Notice if there’s a “part” of you that’s especially overwhelmed by the state of the world. Can you be with that part gently, without trying to fix it?

Mindfulness is not about escaping the world—it’s about becoming present enough to respond, rather than react.

5. Create a Rhythm of Safety

In times of cultural tension, our systems often lose their internal rhythm. A regular rhythm—of sleep, meals, movement, and rest—restores predictability, which is healing in and of itself.

Try this daily pattern:

  • Morning: Warm breakfast, light stretching, no news.
  • Midday: Nourishing meal, short walk, breath practice.
  • Evening: Cooked dinner, screen-free time, journaling or quiet reflection.

Repetition, ritual, and rhythm send the message: It’s okay to exhale. You are not required to carry the whole world.

You don’t have to shut yourself off from the world to care for yourself. But you do need to be discerning. Overwhelm is not a personal failure—it’s your body’s way of asking for less input and more presence.

Start with one small shift: fewer headlines, one nutrient-rich meal, a walk without your phone, or two minutes of quiet breathing. These acts are not escapes—they are what allow you to return to the world resourced, grounded, and able to meet it with clarity and compassion.

Posted on

Why Your Body Holds On: Understanding Inertial Fulcrums in Craniosacral Therapy

By Devon Hornby LMT, ABT

Have you ever had an injury that felt “stuck” in your body—even years after it healed? Or felt like you were carrying tension or emotional weight in places that didn’t quite make sense?

In Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BCST), we understand these kinds of experiences as inertial fulcrums—places where the body is still holding onto something from the past.

What Is an Inertial Fulcrum?

An inertial fulcrum is simply a place in your body where something got stuck. This could be from:

  • A physical injury like a fall, car accident, or surgery
  • A strong emotional experience like grief, fear, or loss
  • Ongoing stress that your body never fully processed

When something overwhelms your system, your body does what it must to protect you. It organizes itself around the event and keeps going. But sometimes, it never fully resets. The system adapts, but part of your energy remains caught in that moment.

This is what we call inertia—the sense that part of your system is holding still, or holding on.

What Does That Look Like?

These holding patterns can show up as:

  • Chronic tension or pain
  • Feeling “stuck” in your healing process
  • Areas that feel frozen, numb, or overly sensitive
  • Emotional patterns that seem rooted in the body

In a session, I may feel areas that seem quieter, denser, or disconnected from the overall flow of your system. Your body’s natural rhythms might pause or slow down there. These are signs that something is still waiting for resolution.

How Do We Work With It?

The beauty of BCST is that we don’t try to force anything to change.

Instead, I support your system to reconnect with its inherent health—the inner intelligence that knows how to heal when it’s safe and supported.

In stillness and quiet contact, your system may:

  • Begin to soften and reorganize
  • Come into a “stillpoint”—a deep pause where healing can happen
  • Release long-held tension or trauma
  • Restore natural movement and flow

Sometimes this feels like a gentle wave moving through the body, or a warming or softening. Sometimes it’s emotional. Sometimes it’s just deep rest.

Why This Matters

Inertial fulcrums are not flaws or malfunctions—they’re signs of how your body protected you when it needed to.

And when the time is right, they can become gateways to transformation.

When we meet these places with presence and respect—not trying to fix or change, but simply listening—they often shift on their own. That’s the wisdom of your body at work.

If you’re curious whether this work might support something your body has been carrying—physically or emotionally—please reach out. I’d be honored to sit with you in stillness and discover what wants to unfold.

Posted on

Chronic Pain as a Form of Trauma

By Devon Hornby, LMT, ABT

Chronic pain isn’t just about the original injury or condition—it’s often about the body’s adaptation to it.

Whether the cause was physical or emotional, our nervous systems respond to pain or threat by creating patterns of protection: tension, guarding, altered movement, or shutdown. Over time, these protective patterns can become fixed, even long after the original event has passed.

This is why chronic pain can linger for years—even after healing has technically occurred. The body is still behaving as if the danger or injury is present.

In this way, chronic pain is a form of trauma. It’s not the event itself that causes the lasting impact, but the way our system holds onto it.

The work of healing, then, is not just about treating tissue—it’s about gently unwinding these fixations and helping the body realize the threat is no longer here.

Through body-centered therapies like manual therapy, somatic education, and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, we create the conditions for the body to return to the present moment, where healing becomes possible.

When we listen to the body—not try to override it—we open a path to deep, sustainable relief.