The Disconnection Crisis: How To Find Flow in a System built for Stress
by Jessica Musgrove-Ortiz
Modern life has fostered the belief that humans are separate from nature. With technological advancements, we now live in a society full of conveniences and distractions. While having everything at our fingertips can be a powerful tool, our relationship with technology often devolves into dopamine-driven distractions, rather than enhancing our connection with our internal systems.
Throughout the decades, psychologists have uncovered the profound impacts of capitalism on human development and mental health (Gerber, 2022). This system exploits human suffering—from natural disasters to poverty—creating isolation within communities and reinforcing systemic barriers to healthcare (Bert, 2015). Our Western illness model of mental health exacerbates individual dysfunction by pathologizing natural human responses to inhumane or traumatic events.
As a mental health professional working toward licensure in California, I have been trained within the Western medical model, which emphasizes pathologizing over understanding.
This approach focuses on assessing clients’ behaviors and presentations during the initial session, assigning a mental health diagnosis, and addressing symptoms rather than exploring root causes. Furthermore, the medical model promotes short-term therapy—primarily due to funding limitations in community programs—hindering the trust and safety required for meaningful healing. The pattern is clear: treat the individual, overlook their internal systems’ need for connection and security, and repeat.
The Autonomic Nervous System and Chronic Stress
This approach fundamentally misunderstands how our bodies respond to modern pressures. The human body is equipped with an Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), which
regulates involuntary functions such as heart rate, breathing, and digestion. Within the ANS, the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) controls “rest and digest” functions, while the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) triggers the “fight, flight, freeze, or fawn” response. This neurobiological design helps us react to real or perceived threats for survival. However, the relentless pressures of capitalism—perfectionism, workaholism, consumerism, and alienation—keep this stress response in a constant state of overdrive, leading to chronic stress and physical health challenges.
Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has helped the public understand that the body remembers trauma, even when the conscious mind does not. In The Body Keeps the Score (2014), he explains how trauma reshapes internal systems and leaves a lasting imprint on how individuals navigate the world. It affects the brain’s ability to regulate emotions, often trapping people in heightened states of arousal or dissociation. This rewiring of the nervous system can keep the body stuck in survival mode, where fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses are perpetually activated.
Van der Kolk’s work highlights how trauma becomes stored in the body as implicit memory, manifesting as physical tension, chronic pain, or other somatic symptoms. Thisunresolved trauma can lead to hypervigilance, difficulty trusting others, and emotional dysregulation, even when the original threat is no longer present. Without intervention, these patterns can dominate a person’s life, making it difficult to feel safe, connected, or grounded. Psychotherapist Pete Walker identified the fawn response while researching the impact of childhood emotional abuse. This response, believed to be activated by the PNS, often leads children who experience emotional abuse to develop self-sacrificing behaviors and struggle with ocial engagement (Reyome, 2010). Capitalism fosters a culture where families are not given adequate time to bond and where maternal wellness is deprioritized. Maternal care after birth is vital to the health of the child, as a dysregulated, isolated, and chronically-stressed mother will have challenges being attuned to the infant.
This has the risk of unintentionally causing emotional neglect and/or abuse, which is why the treatment of mothers and families are essential.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2023), one in five women in the U.S. report experiencing mistreatment during labor and childbirth. The harsh reality is that many families are forced to overwork themselves and sacrifice their health just to meet basic needs.
Witnessing Capitalism
Working as a community mental health professional, I witness first-hand the devasting effects of capitalism. Many of my clients struggle due to systemic barriers and the lack of
accessible, trauma-informed mental and physical healthcare. Under capitalism, healthcare is often treated as a business rather than a fundamental right, prioritizing profit over people’s well-being (Bet, 2015). Those with trauma symptoms frequently experience physical illness, as the chronic activation of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) weakens immune function.
I have not only endured multiple traumas but have also felt the weight of chronic stress imposed by capitalist pressures. The unresolved trauma in my body made me vulnerable to exploitation, leading me into abusive relationships, toxic work environments, and dangerous situations—each reinforcing my deep-seated belief that I wasn’t good enough and further destabilizing my nervous system. As a child, frequent illness kept me out of school, creating an invisible pressure to achieve at the expense of my health. In my later adolescences, I worked in a work environment that threatened my job if I would take a sick day. This was a spiral downhill into unhealthy coping, until I found flow arts. Looking back, dance and movement has always been present in my life; however, I did not understand how it was helping me through my adverse experiences. Discovering flow arts became a profoundly healing experience, offering a path to reconnect with my body and break free from these patterns.
Movement as a Pathway to Healing
Looking back, I realize movement has always been a lifeline for me. Before joining my school’s dance team in the fourth grade, I was an extremely dysregulated child. Dance provided a structure that brought me a sense of grounding and joy. In high school, I continued dancing but also discovered flow arts through “gloving” on YouTube. Watching someone dance with illuminated fingers was mesmerizing, and I knew I wanted to learn that.
Gloving became a significant part of my life, introducing me to the electronic-dance music community and eventually other forms of flow arts, such as hula hooping, poi, and fans. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when I was out of abusive and harmful environments, I finally decided to learn hula hooping—a skill I had always admired but doubted I could master.
The beginning was challenging.
As someone with unprocessed trauma, I harshly criticized myself for every mistake made or when I dropped the hoop. But as I persisted, I began learning tricks, building stamina, and connecting with a supportive community of flow artists. I realized I had experienced flow states before through gloving and dancing—though I hadn’t understood how they were helping me connect to my internal systems.
This is when my Neurosomatic Flow journey began.
The more I practiced hula hooping, the more I felt alive, centered, and connected. I eventually began exploring other flow arts and ways of moving. The more ways I learned how to move and enter flow state, the deeper those pleasant sensations and emotions continued to grow. This led me to explore the science behind flow states, a psychological phenomenon where individuals feel fully immersed, focused, and present in an activity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
Flow States and the Science of Healing
Since finishing graduate school, I’ve searched for ways to incorporate flow state practices into mental health therapy and my community. Since flow arts opened a door of healing I did not know existed, I now have a passion for sharing this information with clients and others in my life. Despite limited research on how flow arts benefit trauma recovery, my experiences—and those of other flow artists—have convinced me that flow states can create a bridge between individual healing and systemic awareness.
Research supports these observations. Levine, Land, and Lozano (2019) studied movement therapy and its impact on trauma treatment. They discovered that movement offers individuals a chance to explore their bodies in a safe way and regain the mind-body connection damaged by trauma. While movement in itself can be a great pathway to healing, it is also known that dancing with a partner has benefits for brain functioning (Verghese et al., 2003). For someone who has experienced trauma related to other humans, dancing with another person can be distressing. This is where flow arts props offer a unique opportunity—creating a situation where the person is still “dancing” with a partner, but this partner is non-human, and the individual has complete control over how they use the prop.
In the Levine, Land, and Lozano (2019) study, one participant talks about using a hula hoop with a group of women who have experienced trauma and regaining a sense of agency through the physical representation of boundaries. This is an example of how a flow art prop can be treated as a partner, allowing the person to experience the same biological brain benefits as dancing with a real partner, while maintaining control over the interaction.
Movement can also lead a person to experience flow state, which promotes balance within the nervous system, counteracting stress responses triggered by systemic pressures. Neuroscience reveals that during flow states, the brain’s default mode network—responsible for self-referential thinking and worry—becomes less active, while regions associated with presence and embodied awareness light up (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Through flow arts, I’ve gained a deeper understanding of my nervous system’s responses to both personal trauma and capitalist pressures. I’ve learned to trust myself, regulate my emotions, and connect with others authentically. Intentional flow practices, especially the NeuroSomatic Flow technique created by Dr. Jinju Dasalla, have empowered me to embrace the belief that I am enough and safe to be seen as I am.
A Vision for Healing Through Flow
Imagine a world where this understanding of flow states informs mental health practices.
Instead of pathologizing natural responses to systemic pressures, we could create environments that support authentic human expression and connection. On a personal level, individuals would have tools to regulate their nervous systems. Communities could foster spaces and activities that facilitate flow states. Systemically, we could reshape institutions to honor human biology rather than override it.
The path forward isn’t about rejecting modern life or technology but rediscovering our innate capacity for flow. Through practices like NeuroSomatic Flow, we can bridge the gap between humans and nature, creating safe spaces for healing trauma and reclaiming agency in an increasingly complex world.
References
Bert, C. (2015). Capitalism, neoliberalism, and the social contract: A critical perspective.
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023). [One in 5 Women Reported Mistreatment While Receiving Maternity Care]. [https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2023/s0822-vs-maternity-mistreatment.html#:~:text=Twenty%20percent%20of%20women%20surveyed,and%20multiracial%20(27%25)%20women.].
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper & Row.
Gerber, J.-F. (2022). The psychoanalytic critique of capitalism: Elements for an overview. Psychotherapy & Politics International, 20(1 & 2). https://doi.org/10.24135/ppi.v20i1and2.05.
Levine, P. A., Land, K., & Lozano, K. (2019).
Exploring Dance/Movement Therapy to Treat Women with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Cirtical Social Work.
Reyome, N. D. (2010). Childhood emotional abuse and later intimate relationships: Themes from the literature. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 19(2), 224–242.
Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
Verghese, J., Lipton, R. B., Katz, M. J., Hall, C. B., Derby, C. A., Kuslansky, G., Ambrose, A. F., Sliwinski, M., & Buschke, H. (2003). Leisure activities and the risk of dementia in the elderly.