Why unstructured movement is essential for Healing, Joy and Embodiment.

In every Soma Groove session, there’s a moment when the energy shifts.

Someone starts to laugh without planning to.
A body rolls off the mat and into instinct.
An awkward move turns into release.
Something cracks open — and joy rushes in.

But it rarely happens right away.

Because play, for most adults, feels… Awkward. Silly. Uncomfortable.
Even unsafe.

We hesitate. We perform.
We stay composed, because we’ve been trained to.

But here’s the truth:
Unstructured play is not childish - it’s essential.

It’s how we regulate our nervous system, expand our creativity and access deeper parts of ourselves that can’t be reached through logic, control or perfection.

Why Play is so hard (and so necessary)

Modern culture worships productivity. We’re taught to seek goals, results, outcomes.
Play, on the other hand, doesn’t promise any of that. It doesn’t serve an agenda. It’s spontaneous, open-ended, and unmeasurable.

And that is its power.

As Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, wrote in his book Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul:

“The opposite of play is not work. It’s depression.”

Play is not a break from healing.
It is a healing modality.
It invites the nervous system to soften.
It teaches the body that it is safe to feel joy again.
It rewires shame.
It undoes the fear of being seen in our fullness.

A personal note: Dance, DJing, and the illusion of control

As a former dancer, performer, and DJ,
I’ve lived inside performance and precision.

On the outside, it looked like I was doing what I loved.
But behind the scenes, I was tightening the grip.
Trying to do it “right.”
Trying to keep it all together.
Trying to control how I was seen.

I built an identity around being in flow, but I wasn’t actually feeling it anymore. Not fully.

Whether I was choreographing on stage or curating a dancefloor behind the decks, something in me was always striving, editing, managing.

I had stopped enjoying what had once brought me alive. Stopped allowing myself to be surprised, spontaneous, and present.

I know what it’s like to disconnect from joy while appearing to be in the center of it.
To be in your element —but out of your body.
To be celebrated for what you do, but quietly losing the thread of who you are.

And that’s how Soma Groove came to be.

To reclaim what I had abandoned.
To bring play back not just as a side note, but as a sacred thread in healing, embodiment, and expression.

What unstructured play does for the body and brain

Play activates the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for imagination, regulation and decision-making.
It boosts dopamine and serotonin, supporting emotional resilience and wellbeing.
It encourages neuroplasticity, helping to release outdated survival patterns and create new, embodied pathways.

As Albert Einstein said:

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world. Imagination is intelligence having fun.”

And as Brené Brown reminds us:

“There’s no creativity without vulnerability. And there’s no vulnerability without some form of play.”

In Soma Groove, we use play to deconstruct the performance.
We welcome the awkward, the strange, the spontaneous, because that’s where truth lives.

Why adults need to reclaim Play

If you’re doing deep healing —working with trauma, expanding your emotional capacity, reclaiming lost parts of yourself —then you also need to be allowed to be silly.
To dance without a plan.
To move without being good at it.
To laugh without knowing why.

This is not indulgent.
This is how we unhook from the internalized systems that keep us shut down.

When you let yourself be weird,
when you make a sound that surprises you,
when you stop needing it to make sense —
you soften the nervous system, disarm the inner critic and come back home to yourself.

You don’t have to be ready — just willing

I feel the resistance every time I open a Soma Groove circle.
It’s real, and it’s welcome.

That voice that says “don’t make a fool of yourself,” that impulse to stay small, stay still, stay safe it’s not your enemy, it’s your conditioning.

And little by little, we soften it.
Through rhythm.
Through play.
Through permission.

You don’t need to know how to let go, you just need to be willing to try.

Come Play with us

Soma Groove is a space of radical permission.
It’s not about being good.
It’s about being real.

We dance.
We release.
We explore.
We laugh.
We remember.

You don’t need rhythm.
You don’t need experience.
You just need a body and a pulse.

This is a practice of returning.
To yourself.
To presence.
To joy.

And you’re always invited.

Find out how you can join the Groove here, either in group sessions around Portugal, as 1:1 , programs and retreats.

*picture by Massimo during our Spring Awakening 2025 Retreat.