Music Festivals, Neuroplasticity, and Transformation

Music festival season has arrived. I’ve just come back from Bass Coast, Shambhala starts this week, and I’ve got more raves this summer than any other year. This year, I’m teaching two movement workshops, and it’s got me thinking about how I approach these kinds of environments. How I arrive, how I move through them, and the deep medicine they provide. I want to share some of that with you.

For a long time now, I’ve treated festivals the way I treat medicine ceremonies. As a place to dance and connect, but also as a space for deep listening, release, integration, and most of all, repatterning. When I go to a festival, I bring everything I’ve learned from yoga, somatics, breath, trauma work, nervous system education, and medicine work. And every time, I learn more from my soma, the body itself.

One of the most powerful things I’ve learned, and something I continue to practice every day, is how to meet the edge. Not just the edge of a stretch, but the edge of sensation. The edge of discomfort. That moment when the body says this is enough, I want to pull away. It often shows up as a physical limit. Tight hips, a stiff neck, a block in the breath. It’s easy to assume that’s just how the body is, but I’ve come to understand that these edges are usually protective responses. Signals from the nervous system that, at some point, it didn’t feel safe to keep going. So the body learned to hold. And when we meet those places with breath and presence, we start to shift the story.

When we meet the edge, and notice where the tension or holding is in the body, take a slow, soft breath into the belly or the area that feels stuck, and let the exhale soften us, we’re doing so much more than stretching and breathing. We’re creating a conversation with the nervous system. And when we move gently around that edge, rotating the hips, spiralling the spine, softening the jaw, we begin to feel space open. Not from force, but from presence. That’s where repatterning happens.

So much of the body’s holding, especially in the hips, pelvic floor, and spine, comes from unconscious guarding. The breath becomes shallow, the spine tenses, the pelvis grips. These are intelligent responses. But when we bring curiosity and slowness into those areas, we start to show the nervous system that it’s safe to soften. Safe to move differently. And the body listens.

The breath is the bridge. When the diaphragm lowers on the inhale, the pelvic floor naturally responds. They’re designed to move together. But when there’s chronic tension or disconnection, that rhythm gets disrupted. Restoring that connection brings grounding, fluidity, and ease.

This work is physical, but also deeply energetic. When we stay with ourselves in the face of discomfort, we’re not just increasing range. We’re creating internal safety. We’re reminding the body that it’s possible to feel more without needing to shut down.

Festivals offer a unique opportunity for this. The system is activated. Art, sound, people, energy. If you’ve danced close to a speaker, you know bass is not just sound, it’s sensation. It moves through the fascia and nervous system. If we let it, it becomes a somatic tool. Bass shakes loose what’s been stuck. When we pair it with breath, voice, and intention, the whole experience becomes a practice. The music becomes something to breathe with. The exhale becomes a release. Movement becomes integration.

This is neuroplasticity. The nervous system is always learning. When we combine new movement with awareness and sound, especially in heightened states, we lay down new pathways. When we meet our edge and stay present with it, we teach the body that it’s safe to feel. We make space for a new story.

If you find yourself at a festival this summer, whether you’re on the dance floor, in your tent, or lying in the grass, take a moment to tune in. Drop into the body. Notice where it resists and breathe into those places. Let your belly rise and fall. Let your jaw soften. Move your neck slowly like you’re drawing circles from the inside. Make sound. Let your body be wild and soft at the same time.

Use these moments to drop into your body, not to check out.

Let the music hold you.

Let your breath guide you.

Let your body show you the way.

I’ll be holding movement workshops at a few festivals this season.

At Shambhala, I’ll be co-facilitating Inhabit Your Body in Contact Dance at 4:30pm Friday at the Secret Garden.

At Wicked Woods, I’ll be offering Body as the Bassline at 6:30pm on Friday, August 29.

And at the Kootenay Yoga Festival, I’ll be guiding Inhabit Your Body in Movement Exploration at 9:30am and Unravel into Stillness, a yin and restorative practice, at 5pm on Sunday, September 14.

If you’re there, come say hi. I’d love to move and connect with you.

Peta.