The big misunderstanding: pain + pressure = change
It’s an old belief system: if you really want to wake up, it has to hurt. If you want to change, you have to confront yourself. Into the fear, through the pain, out to the light.
That’s psychologically scorched earth. That’s neuroscientifically a mistake.
FIVE MOVES works with the reverse principle: you only get out of the blockage when you look at it safely from the outside. When you sit in a warm cinema and watch the film on the screen. Not when you’re frozen in the film.
The foundation for this is the desired feeling, a positive, bodily localised feeling that serves as a safe harbour for the entire session. The difference between this approach and the classical ‘through the pain’ is exactly the difference between transformation and retraumatisation.
Exposure therapy says: go into the fear until it subsides. FIVE MOVES says: look at the fear from a place of safety. Then the fear changes.
That’s not theory. That’s neurobiology. And it has a name: the polyvagal system.
The polyvagal system: the three states of your nervous system
Neuroscientist Stephen Porges showed something fundamental: your nervous system has not two states (on/off). It has three.
State 1: dorsal-vagal (shutdown). You freeze. You’re gone. Your body plays dead because the nervous system decided that fleeing or fighting isn’t possible. No change can happen here. The body is in protection mode.
State 2: sympathetic (fight/flight). Your heart races, you sweat, your body is on alert. Here too: no deep change is possible. The body defends itself. It doesn’t open.
State 3: ventral-vagal (safety). Your body is relaxed, your brain is clear, your nervous system is open. You can think. You can feel. You can learn and transform. This is the only state in which real change is possible.
Stephen Porges (polyvagal theory, 1995): the ventral vagus connects heartbeat, breathing and facial expression with your sense of safety. Only when this nerve is active is your brain in a state that allows real transformation. Original publication →
Why exposure doesn’t work
Classical exposure therapy says: go into the fear. Stay in it until it subsides.
The problem: when you’re IN the fear, you’re in sympathetic state. Yes, after 90 minutes the fear might drop (habituation). But your nervous system has learned: if I hold on long enough, the danger is over. That’s endurance training. Not transformation.
FIVE MOVES works completely differently. First safety: the guide creates a ventral-vagal state through tapping, breathing guidance and your desire feeling. From this safety, you look at the blockage. Not into it. On it. Like in a cinema. And from this safety, the blockage transforms itself.
The anatomy of the safe space
Sensory inputs. FIVE MOVES uses targeted sensory inputs to activate the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve releases oxytocin and GABA. Your nervous system registers: safe touch. I am protected.
Breathing. Deliberately guided breathing exercises directly activate the ventral-vagal nerve. Your nervous system needs only a few cycles to understand: this is the breath of safety.
Desire feeling. Not trauma to look at. Not fear to explore. Instead: bring your positive goal feeling into your heart space. Peace. Strength. Freedom. This feeling is your safety anchor point. From here you look at the blockage.
When the ventral vagus is stimulated, the body releases oxytocin (connection hormone) and GABA (relaxation neurotransmitter). At the same time, cortisol drops. That’s the biochemical profile of safety. Only in this state can neuroplasticity happen, Eric Kandel, Nobel Prize 2000.
The cinema metaphor
State A: you’re IN a horror film. Pitch dark. You don’t see the monster coming. Your heart races. You run, scream, forget to breathe. That’s retraumatisation.
State B: you sit in the warm cinema. Next to you sits someone you trust. The screen shows the same film. But you see it from outside. With distance. With safety. Your body can choose how it reacts.
FIVE MOVES always works from state B. You sit in the warm cinema. That’s your desired feeling plus your safe space. The blockage is on the screen. And you watch it dissolve. How consent is continuously maintained during this, with the body, not just with words.
Safety is the prerequisite, not the reward. First safety. Then transformation.
Your eyes light up again. Not because you’ve suffered enough. But because you’re finally safe.