Tyler Begg’s journey is shaped by a profound belief: that within each of us lies the innate power to heal and succeed. However, these keys to our well-being and authenticity are often obscured, whether intentionally or inadvertently, in the complex tapestry of modern life.
Drawing from personal experience, Tyler understands that navigating the path to health, power, and authenticity can be fraught with challenges and uncertainties. Yet, he sees beauty in the struggle, recognizing that the very obstacles that block our way also hold the keys to transcending them.
In Tyler’s view, his role is akin to that of a guide holding a flashlight, illuminating the path while individuals reclaim their hidden potential. He facilitates this process by empowering individuals to identify and unlock the doors to their own healing and success.
Tyler recognizes the interconnectedness of trauma and authenticity, viewing them as opposite ends of the same spectrum. By creating a safe space for self-discovery and reflection, he enables individuals to deepen their self-knowledge and expand their capacity to engage fully in their lives.
Through his guidance, Tyler empowers others to embrace their inherent strength and authenticity, enabling them to navigate life’s challenges with resilience and purpose. In his eyes, the journey of self-discovery is not merely about overcoming obstacles but about unlocking the boundless potential that resides within each individual.
Read more about this fascinating person in the latest MysticMag interview.
Can you provide an overview of your role as a Neuro-Somatic Intelligence Practitioner and trauma-informed Life Skills Coach, your background in Counseling & Compassionate Inquiry, and how these aspects intersect in your practice?
My role as a Neuro-Somatic Intelligence practitioner is to bridge the gap in communication between mind and body to bring safety back into the lived experience of my clients. Neuro-Somatic Intelligence is the missing piece between talk therapy and bodywork. It’s an opportunity to get people acquainted with their textbook: the knowledge of how to hear and communicate with their body so that they can become confident in knowing how to support them both in a way that creates noticeable and lasting change. So often it can seem like a mystery why we face the symptoms that we face; and when it’s not a mystery, how to then make a shift that lasts. Neuro-Somatic Intelligence does this by working with the nervous system, which can sound medical or intensive, but it is not. It is quite gentle and intuitive. It uses carefully selected exercises, such as eye movement, sensory and movement exercises, and vagus nerve decompression in a “minimum effective dose.” These exercises decrease stress and threats being held in the nervous system and increase its capacity to deal with what is going on in the internal landscape as well as the external one. Why is the nervous system our starting place? Because it touches every part of our experience as humans; it is the lens through which we make sense of the world. Everything we have ever felt thought or perceived has been processed through our nervous system. Even energy work and metaphysics must be interpreted or directed through our human brain and body. This is why neuro-somatic exercises have such a potent impact on everything from emotions, mindset, and beliefs to physical pain and coordination.
Alongside this, I bring my training as a trauma-informed Life Skills Coach to make sure that my sessions are client-centered. It is important to me that I am guided by my client’s wisdom and insight about their situation. My background in counseling and Compassionate Inquiry allows me to understand the underlying roots of trauma that may be present and how they manifest in both the mind and body. In my experience, it is not necessary to re-live the past when working through trauma. It is possible to disentangle the Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Flop responses from the body, setting a person free without constantly re-triggering them.
Neuro-Somatic Intelligence involves a unique approach to healing. How do you apply this methodology in your sessions, and what outcomes have you observed in terms of promoting healing and personal growth?
What you could expect in the session if you were a client of mine is a brief conversation about what the most important thing to work on is, and then we would decide if it would be better to start our approach through the intellect or the body. In both situations, I always make room for emotional processing if it arises. If the topic is better addressed intellectually then I bring my coaching and counseling to the table to help you gain clarity and understanding about what is going on, where it might be coming from, or how to set goals around it. Humans are wired for stories and changing the internal narrative can be immensely powerful. If the topic of the session is better addressed through the body it might be for any number of reasons: it might involve a physical symptom, or it might be because the topic does not respond to logic or because it is too sensitive to approach directly. In this case, I would begin to explore some neuro-somatic tools with you to build up safety and trust within the body. Creating stability and safety in the nervous system is what makes it possible to hold difficult emotions and experiences without becoming overwhelmed. Ideally, treatment should not result in a client experiencing coping mechanisms or extended periods of being triggered. The neuro-somatic tools themselves are usually simple but potent exercises that clients can do almost anywhere to help regulate, manage stress, and mitigate the protective mechanisms that often come with stress. I use a collection of body metrics such as range of motion, visual clarity, vocal range, and balance to assess which tools will be right for each individual. I like to make sure that my clients have a solid foundation of safety before asking them to step into the kind of emotional processing that may be destabilizing to the nervous system. The body moves at its own pace and rushing it can be more than just a step backward. We get better at what we practice so we mustn’t be practicing pushing past our boundaries and activating protective coping mechanisms because it will only make those brain pathways stronger, weakening the pathways for regulation and peace.
Working in this way allows my clients to make holistic changes, instead of choosing one aspect of their life to work on and then white-knuckling the rest. We as humans are very good at compensating to ensure we can continue to function and survive. Our bodies can produce physical compensations for emotional issues (which is a common root of disease states within the body) and vice versa. Because of this clients will often have beneficial impacts on physical symptoms such as fatigue, chronic pain, and migraines as well as mental and emotional outputs like depression, anxiety, addiction, procrastination, and burnout. As the overall, daily sense of threat in the body goes down, the energy that becomes available allows for more creativity, emotional range, productivity, social engagement, and physical movement. Depending on what a client brings to the table, they can begin to see lasting changes and resiliency in a range of 3-6 months. I worked with an Air Force veteran struggling with PTSD flashbacks, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, and back pain who resolved these issues in a mere six sessions. While this is not the norm, it does speak to the potency of this modality.
As a Trauma-informed Life Skills Coach, how do you integrate trauma-sensitive practices into your coaching sessions, and in what ways does this approach support individuals in developing essential life skills?
Being trauma-informed in everything I do means that I enter into any conversation or treatment knowing that the person in front of me has an intricate constellation of life experiences, many of which I may not know about or have even imagined were possible. It is about being educated about what creates trauma, and what are the sensitive topics within the demographics that come to me. A large part of me is also about maintaining the curiosity of the student mindset so that I can truly understand what the needs of each client are. I tread with respect and delicacy in all my sessions because trauma is far more common than I think most people realize. The definition of trauma that I work with is one laid out by Dr. Gabor Mate who says “Trauma is anything that changes you, and as a result of the change you are limited in your ability to respond to the world.” The survival brain(the old brain) doesn’t differentiate between physical, emotional, and social threats so this perspective allows me to validate a wide range of challenges that people face without dismissing or belittling the significance it has in their lives. It also allows me to recognize symptoms of underlying trauma that are more subtle and the roles they may play in the everyday functioning of an individual. For example, one symptom of trauma might be a deficit in the brain’s map of where the body is in space (proprioception). If this is the case then every movement throughout the day can subliminally increase the overall level of stress and threat being experienced in the body, making every task just a little more challenging and making it easier to feel overwhelmed by small things. As a white man a big part of my journey towards being trauma-informed has been, and continues to be learning about my privilege, where it comes from, how it has shaped me, and how I can use it to offer support to others in a way that is valuable to them, and not just what I think might be valuable to them. Life skills are only skills if they are relevant to the life of the individual, the same goes for support. Operating from these perspectives allows me to make my practice client-centered, whether that means tailoring my approach to their needs, or supporting someone in finding a practitioner who is going to be a better fit for them.
Your background in Counseling & Compassionate Inquiry suggests a focus on understanding and compassion. How do these modalities inform your coaching and counseling sessions, and how do they contribute to creating a safe and supportive space for clients?
A phrase that informs my work is “understanding breeds compassion.” Compassionate Inquiry stresses heavily the importance of understanding the roots of trauma to avoid the common pitfall of treating symptoms over and over without ever addressing their underlying cause. I embrace the view that there is always a very good reason for every behavior, coping mechanism, or symptom. If it seems stupid or silly right now it is because it is not fully understood. With enough information (whether it is intellectual, emotional, or somatic information), not only do our cycles and challenges make sense, but they become easier to heal. When we try and change something without understanding the function it is serving in our life, the change is not likely to stick. For example, a person may wish to change their negative self-talk, but if the negative self-talk is driving them to keep moving and being productive because without movement they would slip into depression, then a change is not going to stick unless it can address the threat of depression that is underlying the negative self-talk. Taking the time to discover what is motivating symptoms and behaviors offers a better opportunity to find out what the right tool for the job will be and make the journey that much shorter and less painful.
My background in counseling allows me to be informed of the benefits and shortcomings of clinical perspectives on mental health. Many people seek alternative modalities only when they have exhausted the clinical mainstream treatments so it is important for me to have an idea of what my clients may have experienced before arriving in my Zoom call. It is also important to me to be able to draw from both the clinical and alternative perspectives as there is value in both. I aim to be a safe space for both people who feel more comfortable in the evidence-based clinical side of the spectrum and people who find it more comfortable to approach their work from an intuitive and energetic place.
Can you share examples or stories from your practice where clients have experienced significant breakthroughs or transformations as a result of your integrated approach to coaching, counseling, and Neuro-Somatic Intelligence?
As I mentioned above one woman I worked with is an Air Force Veteran. She had been experiencing chronic back pain, anxiety, and poor sleep interrupted by flashbacks. In social situations, she was gripped with a need to be in control of everything. It was not just impacting her, but also her family and her social life. None of the therapists available to her were able to offer treatments that provided long-term, holistic relief. She had been placed on several pharmaceuticals, which did very little or actively made the situation worse. When she came to me we assessed how she was breathing, worked to restore healthy breathing mechanics, decompress the vagus nerve, and balance her accessory nerve. She was diligent about working these tools into her daily routine and in six weeks she no longer felt that she needed sessions as her symptoms had ceased. She was then able to launch her own private business, start showing up in conversations with her spouse from a place of regulation and she was able to recognize a thread that wove the traumas of her childhood with the symptoms she had been associating strictly with her time in the Air Force.
Another woman I worked with for several months was in an abusive relationship with a narcissistic partner. I was able to offer her new perspectives, and emotional regulation that gave her the energy and mental clarity to reshape her life and take control of the situation. She stepped out from under the power dynamics that had been established and within a year she had moved out, had a job, learned to drive, purchased a car, found a nanny for her daughter, and was no longer getting emotionally hooked by the actions of the narcissistic, now ex-partner. While I believe she could have used more time with me, she stopped her sessions because her work and home life became too busy; which is a success considering her life before where she rarely left the house and her actions were greatly dictated by her partner.
These big changes are byproducts of small shifts that snowball into something transformative, so even more than seeing the results the most meaningful breakthroughs for me are the small foundational shifts that may even go unnoticed by my clients at the time. The moment when someone finds their agency in a cycle for the first time or finds compassion for a part of themselves that they have spent years despising. I think more and more people are beginning to recognize the importance of including mind body and spirit in healthcare, rather than separating them into unrelated categories. There is nothing we do in therapy that does not impact our physical bodies and nothing we do in a doctor’s office that does not affect our mental and emotional state. Though I play a tiny role in this shift, I think that bringing this kind of systemic approach to mainstream wellness is a breakthrough for everyone.
As a practitioner with a diverse skill set, how do you tailor your approach to meet the unique needs and goals of each client, and what role does client empowerment play in the success of your sessions?
Client empowerment is everything to me. I may have a unique set of skills and training but they are nothing if my client does not feel safe or confident implementing them. At the end of the day I don’t think it matters what modality is being practiced, if the client isn’t feeling safe and empowered to engage with it, it will fail. What drew me to Neuro-Somatic Intelligence in the first place was its practicality, simplicity, and that it is fundamentally designed to be tailored for the individual. Through the use of body metric assessments which I mentioned above, I can discover what tools are right for what individuals as well as the beneficial “dosage” (the length and number of repetitions of the exercises). Once I have a client started on the basics it is fine to reduce the frequency of sessions, which not only grants them more agency but also saves them money. My goal is always to work myself out of a job and this modality lends itself well to client independence.
