“I've Always Been Like This" — What If You Haven't?
Most adults who come to us didn't come for themselves.
They came because of their child, or because they're a therapist looking for a better tool. And then somewhere in the middle their first Level 1 class, something shifts — something they'd never thought to mention, because they'd never considered it a problem. Just a fact about who they are.
We hear these a lot:
I'm just an anxious person. I have ADHD. I've always been clumsy. I can't sit still. I've never been able to relax. I'm terrible with directions. I'm just sensitive to noise. I don't like being touched. I've always been high-strung.
People say these the way you'd describe your eye color - settled, just a part of life.
But a lot of the time, they're not personality, and they’re not genetic. They're neurology (specifically, they are real symptoms of active primitive reflexes in adults) — and neurology can change.
Why adults still have active reflexes
Primitive reflexes are supposed to integrate in the first year or two of life. When they don't, they don't disappear at eighteen - the adult simply gets very good at working around them.
You compensate, avoid certain situations, and carry tension and pain that you just accept as “normal” or “a part of aging”. By the time you're forty, you just think this is what being you is like.
Reflexes can also become active again later. Chronic stress, a bad injury, whiplash, surgery, illness, a hard year — any of these can reactivate patterns that had been quiet for decades. This is why some adults tell us they used to be different, and can't explain what changed.
What it looks like in adults
Some of the most common things we see:
Anxiety that has no obvious cause and never really lets up
Startling easily, and taking a long time to settle afterward
Chronic muscle tension through the neck, shoulders, back, hips, or legs that always comes back
Poor balance, motion sickness, discomfort on stairs or escalators
Difficulty relaxing, even when nothing is wrong
Sensitivity to light, sound, or touch
Trouble organizing, planning, or finishing things
Feeling disconnected from your own body
Low back pain, a rotated pelvis, scoliosis, or sciatica
Difficulty knowing what you actually want
Most people reading that list will recognize two or three. That's usually the first clue that they're not separate problems.
Two people
A physical therapist who came to learn the work. She was highly anxious, very Type A, and visibly stressed. She asked a lot of questions and was jumpy in class. Her body held tension everywhere, which tracked with what was going on in her mind.
She took several courses and did the work on herself along the way. She is now one of the calmest, most measured people we know. She reasons through problems without getting swept up in them. Her body moves freely. The anxiety is gone and her stress levels are far lower than when she started. She's a Doctor of Physical Therapy and now works as a BRMT consultant, using this with her own adult patients.
None of that was what she came for. She came to help her clients.
A homeschooling mother who thought she was going to have to stop homeschooling. Her children were struggling with attention and regulation and she was running out of options.
Her kids improved and homeschooling became workable again — that part she expected. What she didn't expect was that over the eight weeks of the course, her own pain decreased, her thinking got clearer, and she became noticeably more organized. She had a lot of vivid dreams during those weeks. She described the whole experience as deeply transformative, and not mainly because of what happened with her children.
What the work looks like for an adult
It's the same movements we use with children, just on different bodies!
Adults have usually been holding their patterns for a long time, and they often accumulate tension and fixations to compensate for long-standing active reflexes. We still like to begin with gentle passive rocking and eventually move to active moments and isometric integrations. We may incorporate more isometric integrations than in a child’s session, as adults can sometimes handle more active engagement. It just depends on where you’re at and what your needs and goals are.
The movements are short — one to two minutes — and don't require equipment.
One thing worth knowing ahead of time: when long-held tension starts to release, emotion often comes with it. Old feelings can surface. Sleep changes. Dreams get vivid. This is common and it's usually a sign that something is shifting, but it's the reason we go gently and the reason we always recommend working with a certified consultant or instructor.
What adults notice
Less pain and tension. Better sleep. Improved digestion. More initiative — actually starting things. More resilience when life is hard. A clearer sense of what they want.
And frequently, the thing they mention first: feeling more settled in themselves.
The part we want you to take seriously
If you've spent your whole life believing you're an anxious person, or a clumsy person, or someone who simply can't relax — it's worth asking whether that's true, or whether it's a pattern that was set before you had any say in it.
The nervous system keeps the ability to do this work throughout life. Our oldest client was 95.
It may not be who you are - it may just be what hasn't finished yet.
BRMT is an educational model. We don't diagnose, and this work doesn't replace medical or mental health care. If you're dealing with significant anxiety or chronic pain, please keep working with your providers — this is meant to sit alongside that, not instead of it.