support for nervous system

Bilateral Drawing

The movement, attention and presence became the therapy

Bilateral drawing, a technique used in art therapy and trauma recovery, involves using both hands simultaneously to make marks, engaging both brain hemispheres.
You can use crayons, pastels, or paints (as I show in the video).
Paints tend to engage deeper layers — the shadow side, suppressed impulses, what usually stays unexpressed. You may start drawing with your eyes closed. When you feel complete, open your eyes and take a moment to sense what moved through your hands.
If it feels right, you can complete the process with a simple ritual — burning the paper with a clear intention to release what was expressed and no longer needs to be carried.

Process Over Result: The focus is on the rhythmic, physical act of drawing rather than creating a finished, polished artwork.

I guide clients through this process in live sessions, or I offer audio guidance for self-work. Each audio is designed to support a specific type of pain or inner process — migraine, period pain, or another area where the body holds tension. Here is a practice for Heart

There is no pressure to create something beautiful or “meaningful.” The value is not in the image — it is in the process. You don’t need to talk while doing this. And often, that is the most important part.
When what is stuck in the chest, body, or nervous system is released onto paper, clarity follows.
It becomes easier to sense what you feel, what bothers you, and why.

This practice enhances focus, reduces stress, and fosters a meditative state by synchronizing movement and breath. You can reconnect "thinking" and "feeling"

Heal your Heart area with bilateral drawing.
Video and Audio guidance.

Practice

What bilateral drawing does?

Engages both sides of the body and brain simultaneously (coordination between the left and right brain)— using both hands to move and draw pulls in bilateral motor patterns and sensory input. This is similar to rhythmic, repetitive movements like walking, rocking, or drumming. It’s inherently sensorimotor.
Read more Psychology Today

Because it’s body-based and sensory first, it taps into processes outside of purely cognitive control — meaning it works “bottom-up” (from body/sensory systems → brain regulation) rather than “top-down” (cognitive deliberate control).

Bilateral Drawing activates interhemispheric interaction , promotes cognitive development, improves focus, and can help release perfectionism.

Why this is “bottom-up”
regulation?

Bottom-up = starts with body/sensory/implicit experience, not conscious reasoning.

Bilateral drawing floods the nervous system with predictable sensorimotor input before any talk or meaning-making happens. That input influences subcortical centers (brainstem and limbic circuits), which in turn shifts autonomic balance toward the parasympathetic side.

If you want to adress a sertain emotions or sensations in your body via bilateral drawing here is my advise.

Anger / Rage

Black – containment, boundary, compression
Red – heat, force, survival energy
Dark maroon / oxblood – suppressed or internalized anger

Shame

Brown – collapse, heaviness, “something is wrong with me”
Dull gray – hiding, flattening, invisibility
Dirty beige / muddy tones – contamination, “not clean enough”
Dark blue (without brightness) – turned-in emotion, self-blame

Guilt

Dark green – moral weight, responsibility overload
Olive / khaki – obligation, “I should” energy
Brown-green mixes – stuck loops, unfinished business

Fear

Cold blue – freeze, dissociation
Purple – hypervigilance, alertness, nervous system tension
Black + blue – survival fear, threat without action
Yellow-green (acidic) – anxiety-based fear, internal alarm

Depression

Dark gray – numbness, low tone
Blue-black – heaviness, exhaustion, shutdown
Muted navy – resignation, “nothing moves”
Washed-out colors – loss of vitality

Anxiety

Bright yellow – overstimulation, nervous activation
Neon or acidic colors – sensory overload
Red + yellow – agitation, inner pressure

But! Firstly rely on your intuition.
What color speaks to you in that very moment?
What color is healing and supportive for you now, in your situation?

Heal your Heart area with bilateral drawing.

Practice

From body rhythms to nervous system states

These bilateral sensory-motor patterns help shift attention away from threat signals (e.g., freeze/fight/flight activation) and bring you back into rhythmic motor engagement.

That rhythm tends to cue parasympathetic activation — similar to how steady breathing, rocking, or slow movement does. This kind of bilateral rhythmic movement modulates arousal physiologically instead of cognitively — exactly what bottom-up regulation refers to. It gives the nervous system something predictable and rhythmic to lock onto, which helps dampen sympathetic overdrive and recruit parasympathetic influences.

Nervous system
mechanisms behind it

Rhythmic motor patterns that cross the midline can influence brainstem and vagal pathways, which are core regulators of heart rate, breathing, and calm/rest functions of the parasympathetic system. There isn’t a clear experimental study directly showing that bilateral drawing increases vagal tone, but the therapeutic logic draws from broader neuroscience: rhythmic, embodied engagement tends to slow respiration, lower heart rate, and dampen limbic hyperactivation — all classical signs of parasympathetic engagement.

Cathy Malchiodi’s work frames this in art therapy as helping clients shift out of limbic hyperactivation and into states where the body and mind can settle and integrate experience — a bottom-up regulatory effect that supports autonomic balance.

Rhythm + bilateral motor engagement → sensory safety signals →
parasympathetic recruitment → calmer physiology.
That’s exactly what bottom-up regulation of the nervous system aims for in trauma and self-regulation practice.

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