The Future of Healing Is a Mental Gym: Meet the Woman Flipping the Wellness Script
We’re living in an age of mental health awareness—scrolling past trauma memes, reposting Gabor Maté quotes, and nodding along to reels on self-parenting. But awareness alone doesn’t move the needle. That’s where Sogol Johnson steps in—with a bold message: insight isn’t enough. It’s time to act.
While the world scrolls through posts on self-love, Sogol Johnson is building something bold, tactile, and revolutionary: the Cycle Breakers Lab.
“Saying ‘I know where it comes from’ isn’t the same as healing it,” says Sogol Johnson, ACC trauma-informed coach, somatic therapy practitioner, and author of Wiggles McGee Children’s Book Series. “Awareness is the starting line, not the finish. You’ve got to do the reps.”
From Insight to Integration: The Mental Gym
Cycle Breakers Lab isn’t therapy—and it isn’t a woo-woo retreat either. It’s a guided container where science-backed methods meet the realities of parenting and reparenting. Think of it as a nervous system gym: personalized assessments, trauma-informed coaching, community support, and expert-led labs that help parents transform their childhood wounds into secure foundations for their own families.
The lab integrates:
- IFS-informed coaching, based on Dr. Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems model, helps participants identify and reparent their wounded inner parts. These “parts” often drive subconscious behaviors—especially under stress—until they feel seen, understood, and safely integrated.
- Polyvagal Theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, offers a roadmap to understanding how our autonomic nervous system (fight, flight, freeze, and social engagement states) responds to stress and safety. By learning to shift into a regulated state (ventral vagal), participants increase their emotional flexibility and sense of connection.
- Somatic Practices (soma meaning body) are body-based tools—like grounding, breathwork, orienting, and self-touch—that help complete the stress response cycle. Rather than staying in a loop of cognitive awareness, participants actually feel their way back to safety and presence.
- Resilience Training strengthens a person’s window of tolerance—their capacity to hold stress, discomfort, or activation without shutting down or lashing out. This builds emotional stamina and prepares parents to co-regulate with their children instead of reacting from dysregulation.
It’s not about intellectualizing your trauma. At Cycle Breakers Lab, we work through the body to embody healing in real time—so your children inherit resilience, not your reactivity. We start with the lowest-hanging fruit: small, doable shifts that create momentum and nervous system traction.
Disrupting the Healing Industry
Johnson’s approach is disruptive—and deliberately so.
“We’ve been conditioned to think healing has to be slow, clinical, or hidden. I want it to be accessible, measurable, and something you can feel working. I want to see Cycle Breakers Labs pop up across the country—just like CrossFit or OrangeTheory—but for your emotional body.”
She calls her method micro-dosing self-parenting—meeting yourself where you are with practical, digestible tools that fit into the chaos of modern parenting. The body must learn that the trauma is over, and that learning happens through repetition and safety. Just like physical fitness, nervous system healing takes time—you don’t expect muscle tone overnight, and you can’t expect emotional rewiring to be instant either. But that process doesn’t have to be overwhelming. It can be empowering, encouraging, and even easeful. While traditional therapy offers valuable insight, her model is built for movement, momentum, and measurable shifts. Each small step cues the nervous system: you’re safe, and you’re rewiring.
Somatic = Healing Through the Body
Somatic simply means ‘body-based.’ Drawing from Polyvagal Theory, Sogol Johnson explains that trauma isn’t just a memory—it’s a pattern stored in the nervous system. Without body-based healing, most people stay stuck in cycles of stress and shutdown.
Parents often carry what they’ve never had the chance to process—like emotionally immature caregivers or unspoken generational shame. The Lab gives them their personalized roadmap and tools to rewire that.
“You can’t talk your way out of a nervous system stuck in survival,” Johnson says. “But you can train your body to feel safe enough to break the cycle—for good.”
For the Next Generation: The Wiggles McGee Series
Johnson’s commitment to breaking the cycle doesn’t stop with parents—it starts even younger. She recently authored the Wiggles McGee children’s book series, including Wiggles McGee Finds Magic Within—a playful story designed to teach emotional regulation, building resilience, and emotional intelligence to children and their caregivers alike. intelligence using the timeless Zoroastrian principles of Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.
The inspiration? Her own child. “I didn’t like much of what I was reading at bedtime. It felt empty—either too basic, dated or not helpful,” Johnson recalls. “And I realized, every parent reads to their child before bed. What if that moment could do double duty—entertain the child and educate the adult?”
That question became the foundation of the Wiggles McGee series. These books are intentionally crafted to:
- Encourage meaningful conversations between parents, educators, caregivers, and children
- Introduce nervous system regulation in a playful, accessible way
- Support children with diverse emotional needs using age-appropriate language and tools
- Reinforce emotional literacy through repetition and story structure
- Offer double value: entertain kids and educate adults
They’re more than bedtime stories—they’re emotional literacy tools for families.
Mental Gyms: Making Emotional Hygiene Accessible
Because what good is awareness if it stays in your head? Johnson is making emotional hygiene real—tactile, trackable, and part of daily life.
She’s not just disrupting the coaching industry—she’s reimagining what mental wellness can look like in the real world. Her vision is to weave mental and emotional regulation into the fabric of daily life. From nervous system rooms in hospitals—like modern-day prayer rooms—to co-regulation corners in classrooms, and emotional fitness hubs alongside yoga and fitness studios, Johnson wants emotional hygiene to be as mainstream as physical health.
Books, labs, spaces, tools—it’s not just a method. It’s a movement already in motion.
See the movement in action—connect with Sogol Johnson on Instagram, LinkedIn, or at www.theselfparent.com.” LinkedIn or Instagram. Visit www.theselfparent.com to learn more about the Cycle Breakers Lab.
