Your body never learned how to calm down. It built walls instead. Seven environmental forces teach it what reliable presence feels like.
Founder & Author
Five years recovering from Long COVID, CPTSD, and ME/CFS. Author of three books on nervous system rehabilitation: Terra Forms: Cybernetic Mysticism for Civilisational Healing, Sacred Hunger: A Contemplative Guide to Food & Fasting, and Holy Smoke: A Contemplative Guide to Dying Well. Based in the UK.
Fear of open spaces or closed ones. Clingy or distant. Absorbed by family or left alone. One extreme loses itself in everything. The other walls off from everything. Same wound, different expression.
When the nervous system never learns where it ends, it builds walls instead. A fortress. But fortresses have operating costs.
CPTSD: walls holding. Burnout: walls cracking. ME/CFS: emergency shutdown. These are not separate diseases. They are stages of the same process.
Peer-reviewed research. Core citations verified against primary sources.
"The diagnosis of PTSD was reversed for 44.1% of the sample." Effect sizes: Cohen's d = 0.94-1.26.
Brom et al., 2017Significant improvement in nervous system flexibility across 27 studies.
2024 Meta-AnalysisRosary/mantra recitation naturally slows breathing to about 6 breaths/minute, creating synchronous cardiovascular rhythms and improved heart-body coordination.
Bernardi et al., 2001, BMJBrain scans show widespread calming across multiple brain regions, including the threat-detection centre.
Kalyani et al., 2011Eye movement activates a brain pathway that calms the threat-detection centre. Confirmed in laboratory research.
Baek et al., 2019, NatureParticipants with PTSD history were "over eight times more likely" to report CFS.
Dansie et al., PsychosomaticsMeta-analysis confirms reduced vagal activity in ME/CFS populations.
Nelson et al., 2019, MedicineChildhood trauma associated with 5-6× increased CFS risk.
Heim et al., Georgia Population StudyWhere this extends beyond established evidence. Strong elements have research support. Others are promising hypotheses.
Floor sleeping benefits, while theoretically plausible from proprioception research, lack direct controlled studies. A 2003 Lancet study found medium-firm surfaces superior to hard floors for back pain. The specific claim that floor contact provides nervous system benefits for trauma populations requires empirical validation.
Hypothesis requiring validationThe "defensive posture" framing, while clinically useful, is metaphor more than mechanism. Claiming ME/CFS is "extreme defensive shutdown" goes beyond evidence establishing autonomic dysfunction to assert a particular causal model. The framework may prove correct but currently represents hypothesis.
Clinically useful metaphorWhile burnout shares autonomic dysfunction with CPTSD, ME/CFS, and Long COVID, it lacks their post-exertional malaise and immune patterns. Including burnout in the full unification is conceptually coherent but less empirically supported than the other three conditions.
Weaker empirical linkNo studies have compared outcomes between somatic/environmental approaches and pharmaceutical/cognitive treatments for these specific populations. The integrative framing offers genuine contribution but requires research validation.
Awaiting comparative trialsTerra Form§ is most accurately positioned as rigorous synthesis + original hypothesis — not as established treatment protocol. The research foundation is genuine; the novel extensions are reasonable hypotheses worthy of investigation.
Hundreds of millions affected. Massive unmet medical need.
No FDA-approved treatments exist for ME/CFS or Long COVID. ME/CFS receives only $10-13 million from NIH's $48 billion budget. Patients report widespread medical dismissal and significant diagnostic delays. The economic burden exceeds $1 trillion annually for Long COVID alone.
Researchers are explicitly calling for unifying approaches:
Terra Form§ emerged from five years of healing from Long COVID, CPTSD, and ME/CFS. When conventional approaches offered limited relief, a systematic exploration of body-based practices began: floor sleeping, cold exposure, darkness therapy, breath work, vagal toning. What worked was documented. What didn't was discarded. Patterns emerged.
The research literature confirmed what direct experience suggested: these conditions share autonomic dysfunction, and body-based interventions can address what talk alone cannot. The synthesis presented here draws from peer-reviewed research, somatic therapy traditions, and the hard-won knowledge of what actually helped one nervous system return to regulation.
This is lived-experience research, not clinical practice. Terra Form§ is offered as rigorous hypothesis, not established treatment. The evidence page distinguishes between what is well-supported and what remains speculative. The protocol is shared because it helped, and because others facing similar conditions deserve access to the same information.
The work continues.
They cannot be charmed, and they cannot be avoided. They never change the rules. They hold without holding on and witness without extracting.
The gazelle doesn't need a therapist. A few minutes alone in a clearing. We help you find the clearing. Complements, does not replace, medical care.