It’s not “in your head.”

It’s your nervous system trying to protect you — and you can retrain it with compassion, support, and evidence-based tools.

You deserve healing that sees the whole you.

Your nervous system isn’t malfunctioning—it’s communicating. Sometimes the path to calm starts with listening to what it’s been trying to tell you. Read the full article at merilevy.com/real-nervous...

Calming techniques can help, but real regulation often comes from the deeper work: advocating for yourself, setting limits, feeling your feelings, honoring your needs, and creating emotional safety in your life.

Tending to this vulnerable part of ourselves can be transformative for chronic symptoms. When we finally offer the love and attention we’ve long needed, healing becomes possible.

If you try this, let me know what you discover. Inner child work can be very powerful. merilevy.com/why-parents-...

Start simply: “What do you need right now?” “I’m here. I’m listening. I’m not going anywhere.”

If this nurturing voice feels unfamiliar, that’s normal—it grows with practice. Your inner child may be angry or distrustful at first, but checking in regularly builds safety.

I often picture these symptoms as my inner child throwing a tantrum, because it hasn’t been listened to. One powerful exercise is writing a dialogue between your inner child (non-dominant hand) and a loving inner parent (dominant hand).

Doctors should run the necessary tests and mind-body practitioners can address the neuroplastic piece whenever it’s indicated. If mind-body work helps, that tells us something important: the symptoms were neuroplastic all along.

...labs, neurology, MRI. All normal. The medical search only delayed the support I actually needed—mind-body treatment.

The truth is, you don’t have to choose between medical evaluation and mind-body treatment.

Just as I would when treating anxiety, depression or insomnia, I always make sure clients have had recent medical care and labs. I rule out the medical, then treat what’s left.

When I went through severe neuroplastic dizziness, nausea, and insomnia, my doctors ran every test...

they move around, show up after (but not during) exercise, start in both hands or shoulders at once, or flare only under certain conditions. These patterns don’t fit neatly into medical diagnoses, and doctors often shrug because nothing adds up structurally.

By the time they arrive in therapy, they’ve usually tried the medical route, run the tests, and been told there’s nothing more to do, or they're exhausted from trying alternative treatments.
Many neuroplastic symptoms also don’t behave like medical conditions...

in general, these findings are the same as seeing no structural damage at all.

These MRI findings do not mean that you can’t heal using a mind-body approach. Most chronic pain is neuroplastic (generated by the brain), and you can unlearn it with mind-body psychotherapy.

Like gray hair and wrinkles, these findings are a normal sign of aging, and not to blame for your chronic pain. It’s often just a coincidence that they are in the general area of your pain.

Many doctors will blame these findings for your pain, because they don’t have any other medical explanation.

And did you know that 69% of pain-free adults (and 89% of athletes) have hip labral tear(s)s on MRI*?

This is also true of degenerative meniscal tears, spinal stenosis, facet arthritis, as well as shoulder labral and rotator cuff tears.

Most of the time, these findings on MRI are incidental.

Mind-body therapy can help calm your nervous system, reduce pain, and restore a sense of safety and balance—so you can feel like yourself again. 🌿

Reach out by visiting merilevy.com to find out how.

Pain, dizziness, nausea or tension can reflect the body’s response to stress and unprocessed emotions. Pregnancy is a vulnerable time. Somatic symptoms can be a "danger signal" that your brain is creating in your body. To the extent that these symptoms are caused by your brain, they are reversible.