In the fall of 2019, my therapist told me about a fascinating new thing she’d just been trained in: a music-based, research-backed intervention designed to help shift anxiety or shutdown survival patterns (whether from early trauma or more recent stress) into connection, ease, and safety.
When I told her it sounded like snake oil, she laughed and said, I know what you mean—I thought that too at first. It sounded too good to be true. Until it wasn’t!
I trusted her. And as a die-hard for healing, I was in.
When I told my husband—also a die-hard for healing, and a huge neuroscience geek—he wanted in too.
So we both did a round of the SSP:
The Safe & Sound Protocol
His results came quickly: less spiraling, a steadier baseline, and dialing down of that old low-grade anxiety that had always hummed in the background.
My results came a few weeks after completing my 5-hour protocol, but they were just as real. My favorite? Laughing more easily and more often. All around, just more. Which felt like a pretty good sign that I was more at ease in my own skin.
(Because let’s be honest—playfulness is hard to access when you’re in survival mode. Which for me can look like hyper-vigilance and anxiety-based control.)
Our timing was good, because two months later, the pandemic hit. And lockdown.
From one week to the next, I closed my massage office, pivoted online, and began teaching daily body-based meditation classes on Zoom.
When what we all hoped would be a short-term pause stretched into something indefinite, I moved fully into nervous system coaching. It was a natural evolution from my massage and Focusing background—already underway pre-pandemic—but with therapeutic touch off the table, I leaned all the way in. I completed additional training and became a certified SSP practitioner.
And then… we got a dog.
Context: What had most jumped out to my husband about nervous system re-patterning was the importance of co-regulation. And during lockdown, when he and I were the only mammals in proximity to one another, he started dreaming of a third mammal, specifically, a dog.
I should add that at the time (in my late 40's) I was also actively and messily grieving not having had a child. That grief is a story for another day—but for now I'll just say that in the middle of all this, Jeffrey became obsessed with what a dog might bring into our lives. And maybe, especially, into mine. 🥹
We found her on a rescue site: a hound mix from Tennessee. A new mom—possibly even for the second time—in foster care with all her pups, and about to be shipped to Massachusetts on the next transport truck.
We talked to her foster, who loved her and said, “If my other dog were friendlier, I’d keep her.”
Jeffrey made her photo his screensaver and looked at it all the time. (Stared at it, more like!)
Something about her eyes. The story I tell now is that we loved her before we even met her. And when we said yes to adopting her, we did so knowing full well we were committing without ever having met her.
Something about her expression—familiar, sad, a little scared to hope. (I know, I know, projection. But still!)
On a rainy Saturday in February 2021, we stood under our umbrella, masked and spaced 6 feet apart with all the other eager adopters outside the Massachusetts shelter pickup site.
Finally, at the front of the line, they brought our trembling, shy, one-year-old pup to us.
She was silent. Shaky. Unsure.
In the parking lot, she didn’t want to walk. She definitely didn’t want to get in the car. Finally, Jeffrey picked her up and placed her—all 48 trembling pounds of her—gently onto the back seat of our old Prius and I climbed in quickly beside her so she wouldn't jump out. (We had no idea how she'd react!)
She shook the whole way home. She didn’t pee or poop for two days.
She wouldn’t lie down on the bed we got her. She wouldn’t go near the crate we were told was important for her to be trained to sleep in.
That first night, we finally cleared a space on the floor in the small doorless closet near our bed, put down a rug for her, and—somehow—everyone fell asleep.
We named her Bertie, short for Roberta.
Over the next few days, we watched her. We gave her space, but always with our eye on her. We filled our pockets with treats. We took her on walks. And watched some more.
Jeffrey’s daughters came to meet her. They both crawled into her crate, trying to lure her in with treats. She wouldn’t have it.
One evening, while I was sitting in our IKEA chair, she walked over and rested her head on my hand. It can't have been for more than three seconds, but it was everything: a moment when safety registered enough for her to initiate touch.
From a nervous system perspective, Bertie came to us deep in dorsal vagal shutdown—the freeze-and-collapse state mammals enter when we feel most unsafe.
But slowly, with time, trust, and an accumulation of tiny glimmers of safety, her experience of herself changed and her system began to shift.
Not because we forced her.
Not even because we trained her.
But because we showed up consistently and gave her a safe space to be(come) herself.
About two weeks in, she surprised us with a deep bark and then tilted her head to the sky to let out the most magnificent howl at a passing fire engine.
Who was this dog?!
Her tail began wagging more. She skulked less.
One day Jeffrey let her off-leash—and she ran and ran and ran in wide circles… then came back when he called.
Who rescued whom?
Every day, Bertie teaches me that healing isn’t about making myself do or not do anything. It's certainly not about forcing change.
Healing is about providing the safety, the love and the permission for change to happen—when it feels safe.
With rest. With movement. With watching and waiting. Without pressure.
➞ Healing doesn’t come from pushing
➞ Healing isn’t something you earn
➞ Safety is what allows transformation
Co-regulation, healing, love—these are the things I keep practicing with myself. And it's what Bertie, who is currently asleep and softly snoring, offers back to me every day.
It's also the foundation of the nervous system transformation I offer my clients.
xo,
Heidi
PS: Oh—and in case you need a visual you didn’t ask for: in those early days, Bertie’s teats were still full of milk from her pups. So I did what any madly googling, postpartum-sympathy-having, nervous system coach might do...
I made her a cabbage bra. 🥬😳😂
That’s right. I remembered my sister’s midwife's suggestion of cabbage leaves tucked into a bra to help ease discomfort and dry up breast milk, so I prepped some leaves, rigged a soft wrap out of scarves, and gently fastened the whole thing around Bertie’s torso.
She looked confused. Jeffrey looked incredulous and could not stop laughing. I looked like someone who was absolutely committed to co-regulation... and also maybe losing it a little.
No, I didn’t get a picture. (But I should have.)
PPS: If you want to feel better in your own skin—less spiraling, more ease, fewer shutdowns, more spontaneous laughter (this list could go on and on and varies by person)—this is exactly what I offer in my Jumpstart Nervous System Program.
✨ I’ve got space for 3 more people. If one of those spots is calling to you, here’s what’s possible:
Option 1: The full "enchilada" (including SSP)
Includes: Safe and Sound Protocol, private sessions with Heidi, group coaching, masterclasses/trainings, nervous system playground...
👉 heidifischbach.com/jumpstart
Option 2: Just the SSP
🎧 A gentle, body-first way to reset your nervous system's capacity to feel better, think better, and live better (the one my husband and I first did in 2019, and I've gone on to do three more times since)
👉 heidifischbach.com/ssp
PPPS: Pics!
Bertie before (the pic we stared at before meeting her):