Thank you for your interest
in SBSM Level 1

SBSM Level 1 is comprised of three main components: deep, detailed education about your nervous system and its physiology; practical neurosensory tools to deepen your ability to work directly with unresolved survival stress (aka trauma); and additional resources and support tools to deepen your learning and healing.

Taken as a whole, this combination can help you greatly improve your understanding of yourself, become less afraid of your symptoms, and learn to proactively show up for yourself somatically, so you can start to release old survival energy.

The result: capacity grows, as does internal safety and personal agency. Symptoms often start to decrease in intensity, and sometimes resolve entirely. Regulation grows.

Theory & Education

A. Training Calls

These ‘calls’ are pre-recorded videos that are a continuation from the SBSM Foundations material. Similar to Foundations, each video has fill-in-the-blank handouts to reinforce active learning.

  • The 5 Stages of Neuroplastic Healing & Why Sequencing Matters (Parts 1 and 2)
  • Self-Regulation Basics: How we can get wired for safety (or not)
  • Introduction to Feelings, Emotions & Sensations (this is the stepping stone to working with anger and healthy aggression)
B. Biology of Stress Video Training Series (5-Part Series)

These five videos have stood the test of time and remain the most comprehensive educational series — outside of a professional training — on nervous system and stress physiology, the new traumatology, and what it takes to heal at these deeper somatic levels. They’re presented in slide format with images and even some video.

  • Autonomic Nervous System 101
  • What Animals in the Wild Do That We Don’t Do
  • The Vagus Nerve 101
  • How Stored Survival Stress Shows Up in the Body
  • Healing Our Human Predicament

Practical Lessons & Neurosensory Exercises

Along with deep theory we need deep practice. Read below for the overall reasoning behind each section and its importance for restoring nervous system regulation and healing trauma organically.

A. Orienting Lessons

Orienting is a natural defensive strategy for survival, but it also allows us to take in the good that is around us and connect with the environment through our many senses. When we have stored trauma in our body, our capacity to explore and see the good in the world — as well as stay safe and be alert to danger — can be limited, even non-existent. These lessons, along with the information taught in each audio, will strengthen your understanding of this basic physiological need and help you build more skills to be present and aware in your environment.

  • Introduction to Orienting
  • Basic Orienting
  • Mini Basic Orienting
  • Micro/Macro Orienting
  • Orienting with All the Senses
B. Basics of Somatic Presence

These lessons teach you about core physiological needs of the human system — breathing and containment — and guide you into one layer of the body that often holds old stressors and trapped trauma: the joints. As you open to this greater somatic presence, your somatic capacity increases and can uncover what’s needing to be released. It’s the starting point for working directly with your physiology to release old survival stress.

  • Introduction to Respiration
  • Respiration Lesson
  • Introduction to Containment
  • Containment Lesson
  • Introduction to Joints
  • Joints Lesson
C. Feldenkraisian Learning

Feldenkraisian learning, for our purposes in SBSM, means directly engaging with our sensory-motor (or motor-sensory) system. The Level 1 lessons aren’t the big, whole-body movement patterns typically taught in a somatic movement class or a more classic Feldenkrais Method setting — instead, they guide you to sense tiny micro-movements in the body. These micro-movements and patterns of activation prime you to better pinpoint when an old trauma release might be coming up and out. These lessons also teach you to pause more often, bridging the thinking brain with the moving body.

  • Re-Introduction to Feldenkraisian Learning
  • The “Cup” Lesson
  • Dropping In
  • Introduction to Potent Posture
  • Potent Posture Lesson
D. Practicing Pendulation

Pendulation is a powerful somatic tool that supports your ability to start touching directly into the scarier emotions, sensations, and thoughts that result from trauma — while maintaining a sense of safety and agency.

  • Tense & Relax
  • Finding the Painful & the Pleasant
E. Working with the Stress Organs

“Without first changing the underlying neurochemical platform, any change in behaviour is overriding through force of will.” — Kathy Kain

This quote comes from mentor and expert Kathy Kain, who pioneered working directly with the stress organs to help restore greater safety and regulation to the human system. These lessons are the start of learning how to bring greater intention and attention to the parts of your body that can be on constant high alert, keeping you in survival mode. They’re also important if you lack a proper response to threat and/or don’t have the energy for life’s daily tasks — think burnout and adrenal fatigue.

  • Kidney/Adrenal Awareness Introduction
  • Kidney/Adrenal Awareness Lesson
  • Watering the Brainstem

Handpicked Additional Resources

I’ve handpicked these resources to support your continued learning in SBSM Level 1. Some, like the glossary and book list, aren’t meant to be read all at once — use those at your leisure. The first three are all fair game, and I recommend reviewing those in a titrated, week-by-week manner.

1Original Healing Music

Tune in and just listen. These tracks are all originally composed by Irene’s husband and colleague, Seth Lyon. They range from soothing sounds for sleep to specific pieces for the different energy centers of the body (the chakras).

2Building Internal Safety for Real-World Healing

Two articles by Irene’s husband and colleague, Seth Lyon, tackling practical challenges that come up in healing work: how to cultivate internal safety in a world that can feel scary and toxic, and how to navigate the demands of work and life while moving through a healing process.

3Kathy Kain Interview

Kathy is a mentor and colleague whose influence runs deep through SmartBody SmartMind™. Recorded in 2018, this talk covers her life’s work and unique approach to early and developmental trauma from a somatic perspective — and how she paved the way for working with high levels of survival physiology.

4How Others Can Support You

A letter to share with supportive family members, spouses, partners, colleagues, or close friends who are part of your daily life. This is not for people in your life who are abusive and whom you wish would change.

5SBSM Glossary

From “adrenal glands” all the way to “ventral vagal,” you’ll find 56 commonly used words and concepts from SBSM and most somatic trauma-healing, nervous-system-centered approaches. Use it as a reference, for added reading, or to test comprehension.

6Book List

A selection of books to complement SBSM learning, including a curated selection from my personal library — topics ranging from mind-body work to relationships, spirituality, and soulwork.

Soma AI Tool

This is a powerful tool for personal support that shouldn’t be underestimated or written off as “just another AI thing.” With Soma, we used the current form of AI in the way it really works best — as a search engine that gives you a conversational response.

Its only database is a decade’s worth of Q&As and training calls hosted by Irene, Seth, and other expert somatic practitioners on Team Lyon. Ask Soma a question about the course material, your process with it, or even your personal life experience, and it’s basically like asking Irene or Seth and getting an answer directly from them. Soma provides a humanistic summary, along with direct links to the source material in the form of audio or PDFs.

Cost: $797 USD

Prerequisite to Level 1 is SBSM Foundations.

21 Day Nervous System Tune-Up members may purchase Foundations and Level 1 as a package for $300 off, please check your inbox for an email we sent you on September 14 with your special, discounted link.

If you don’t see that email, please contact us at support@irenelyon.com and we’ll send the link to you.