Network Chiropractic: How the Body Releases Its Own Tension

On an April 2022 episode of The Inner Healer Podcast, host Sacha Stewart and spinal and energetic chiropractor Dr Sarah Jane spend close to an hour on a practice most people have never encountered: network spinal chiropractic, a technique that works with the nervous system through light touch and, at times, from just off the body, rather than by cracking joints or forcing vertebrae back into place. The conversation moves from the mechanics of that approach to the idea that the body stores what a person has lived through, to the spontaneous physical releases that sometimes surprise first-time clients, and finally to a question the episode's description frames as "a different view of success." What follows is a closer look at those ideas, drawn from the episode itself.

What does a "warm-up" look like in an episode that starts with a welcome?

The episode opens the way many good interviews do, with a host who has a personal connection to the guest. "Hello everyone, today on the podcast we have Dr Sarah Jane," Stewart begins, introducing her as the founder of Enlightened Healing, with clinics in Armadale and Calista. Stewart says she once worked at the Armadale clinic and has been a patient there, and she describes the energy in the room as something she has admired for a long time. That warmth matters for what follows. A technique built on subtle sensation and trust is hard to explain cold, and the two women spend the first stretch of the episode establishing a shared vocabulary before they get into the weeds.

What is network spinal chiropractic, and how is it different from a standard adjustment?

Stewart admits that for her, the practice was "very different" from a visit to a standard chiropractor, and asks Sarah Jane to explain it. Her answer begins by taking the old picture apart. "It's not the typical or standard approach to chiropractic, that's for sure," Sarah Jane says. The work is still chiropractic in that it engages the spine and the brain, but the method is not manipulative in the sense of forcing a bone back into a supposedly correct position.

The second difference is the target. Most people who book a chiropractor are looking for relief from back or neck pain. Sarah Jane says network practitioners do not treat pain as the whole story. They look at the person physically, emotionally, mentally, and also from what she calls a spiritual and soul aspect, and they try to connect those parts rather than address a single complaint. She says clients often arrive dealing with trauma, anxiety, or depression, and want to work at the root rather than suppress symptoms.

That distinction shapes everything else. If the aim is not to fix a joint but to change how a nervous system holds itself, then the practitioner's job becomes something closer to facilitation than correction.

Why does the body need to release on its own?

The core idea of the episode is that the body already knows how to heal and align, and the practitioner's role is to clear what gets in the way. Sarah Jane puts it plainly: "We work with the body and allow the body's innate wisdom to move itself, rather than the practitioner manipulating you, you know, the spine in a certain way to go back to a certain place that's more optimal."

Stewart picks up the thread immediately, reflecting back that the body seems to align itself spontaneously, and that the practitioner is really there to facilitate that change. Sarah Jane agrees, and the logic is important. Physical alignment is not treated as an end in itself. The argument is that when tension in the nervous system releases, a person's choices, relationships, and sense of direction can shift too.

Stewart sums this up in a line worth holding onto: "ultimately what we're changing is states of consciousness." Sarah Jane's own framing is that clients who are stuck in the past or anxious about the future are, in a sense, not present, and that bringing them back to the present moment requires a physical and energetic change, much as a meditation or yoga practice does.

What happens when the body releases tension?

This is the part of network work that most people have seen online and found puzzling: people making unusual movements and sounds on the table. Sarah Jane is direct about it. "These are just spontaneous releases that people are doing, and it's an automatic release, just like a knee reflex or your heart beating." She compares the response to the body's ordinary repair work, the way a cut closes without anyone consciously directing it.

The releases are not uniform. Sarah Jane describes several forms. Sometimes a client weeps, which she links to emotional trauma. Sometimes a client screams, which may be anger or grief. Sometimes the response is repression surfacing, and sometimes the person has no idea what they are releasing at all. Physical discomfort can also be part of it. She is also candid that some practitioners in the network field concentrate on neck and back pain, while her own clients tend to come in for emotional and spiritual reasons.

For a reader unfamiliar with this kind of work, the most useful takeaway is that a release is not the goal, and not a performance. It is information about what the nervous system has been holding, and the practice is built around letting that move through rather than forcing it.

Is the body a map of everything a person has lived through?

Stewart asks about a principle that runs underneath the whole technique: the idea that experience is stored in the body. She points listeners toward Peter Levine's work and the book The Body Keeps the Score, which both argue, in different ways, that the body holds on to what a person has gone through. Sarah Jane builds on that idea but extends it. She describes the energetic field as something like a fingerprint, unique to each person, "almost like a map of what that person has gone through in this current life."

She goes further, mentioning that some practitioners see that map as including previous lifetimes, and that it can also reveal what a person's soul yearns to do in this life, not only what has already happened to them. Those are claims from a particular spiritual framework, and the episode presents them as part of that framework rather than as settled fact. What is consistent is the method: the practitioner works on the physical spine or touches a point in the field, and the release is allowed to happen on the body's terms.

What does success look like when alignment comes first?

The episode's description promises "a different view of success," and this is where the conversation turns from technique to life. Stewart observes that many people measure themselves by what their culture calls successful, and asks how a person's sense of achievement changes when they start from a different place. The discussion covers the ways external markers can leave someone feeling hollow, and how a more inward sense of alignment can reorient what they pursue.

The argument is not that ambition is wrong. It is that a person who is out of step with their own nervous system and soul tends to chase goals that do not fit them, and that a body which releases old tension can make clearer choices. Sarah Jane describes her own path in similar terms. The episode's description notes that she found her purpose through having to heal her own life challenges, which is the thread that connects her clinical training to her counseling and energy work.

Who is Sarah Jane, and what training sits behind the work?

Stewart's introduction gives a sense of the breadth of Sarah Jane's background. She is a spinal and energetic chiropractor and founder of Enlightened Healing. Her academic record includes several bachelor degrees, among them a major in psychology, health science, and applied clinical science. She is a graduate of humanistic Buddhism, a certified yoga and meditation teacher, a holistic counselor, and an energy facilitator. Stewart also notes that she is active in community work, including with Indigenous communities and people in need.

That combination explains the episode's approach. Sarah Jane is not presenting network work as a replacement for clinical knowledge. She is describing a practice that sits where clinical training, contemplative practice, and energetic work overlap, and she is clear that her clients come to her for mind-body and emotional concerns that a standard back or neck visit might not address.

Where to go from here

If this conversation raised questions about how the body holds experience, the practical next step is to listen to the full episode, which runs about 54 minutes and includes the later sections on success and purpose that this article only touches. Readers interested in the science and the psychology behind body-based trauma work may want to start with the two sources Stewart names, Peter Levine's writing and The Body Keeps the Score. Anyone considering network spinal chiropractic should take the same care they would with any hands-on practice: ask about training, talk through their goals and history with the practitioner first, and treat the approach as one part of a broader care plan rather than a stand-alone answer. Sarah Jane's own contact details, as given in the episode description, are her website, enlightnhealing.com, and Instagram handle @en.light.n.