THE NATURE OF LEARNING

Before You Learn, Know How You Learn

Every sentient being receives information differently at different stages in our lives.

An embryo inside an egg learns through vibration and containment. A fledgling bird learns through movement, sound, and imitation. Learning styles evolve — because we do.

1. Your Learning Style is Alive

Most people were never asked how they learn best. We’re handed content and expected to adapt, often disconnecting from the very channels through which our intelligence flows most naturally.

In translation, this often means abandoning embodiment for imitation—even in the most well-intended settings.

As an educator, facilitator, and perpetual student of life, I see innovation in how students integrate information not as optional, but essential. It’s the difference between teaching from authentic wisdom versus repeating memorized knowledge.

If you’ve never been asked how you like to learn—or if you’re at a new stage in your life—this is a foundational step toward deeper self-awareness and expression.

I invite you to notice your learning patterns—not to box you in, but to awaken curiosity about how your nervous system, senses, and psyche receive and process information.

We draw on the VARK model as a starting point:

• Visual – You learn best when you can see relationships: maps, diagrams, spatial layouts, symbols.

Example: You’re assembling a tent at camp. Instead of reading the directions, you scan the diagram and intuitively understand where each pole belongs.

In NSR spaces: You develop your understanding of the nervous system and nature through visual journaling, drawing diagrams, and color coded visual displays.

• Auditory – You absorb through listening: cadence, dialogue, storytelling, rhythm.

Example: You’re the one who remembers a recipe because you heard your grandmother describe it—her voice is the anchor.

In NSR spaces: You share insight through storytelling around the fire, or within the cadence of poetic guided meditation.

• Reading/Writing – You anchor through language: reflection, note-taking, writing, and synthesis.

Example: You need to write something down to remember it, or you rephrase information in your own words to make it stick.

In NSR spaces: You memorize frameworks with written acronyms for quick recall.

• Kinesthetic – You learn through doing: movement, sensation, touch, applied experience.

Example: You can read directions ten times but still not remember, but if you physically walk a neighborhood, you’ll remember it forever.

In NSR spaces: You benefit from integrated and immersive experiences that ask you to climb, plant, build, breathe, or move through the landscape.

Note: These aren’t fixed identities, nor are they isolated.

You’ll find that many styles overlap and intertwine—for example, listening to a podcast while taking notes, or watching a tutorial before building something with your hands.

Like developmental stages, your learning style can shift with context, age, and environment whether as part of natural progression or reflexive adaptation.

A toddler might prioritize learning through kinesthetic trial-and-error rather than language.

A parent with limited time may shift toward auditory absorption while multitasking.

Someone in grief might temporarily lean into written reflection because speech feels too sharp, then rediscover embodied learning in a season of restoration.

Learning styles are not labels. They’re living climates.

Learning styles are more like climate than weather. There’s a relationship to place—both literal and metaphorical. You may have struggled in traditional academic settings, only to find your curiosity and scholarship flourish elsewhere. Or your threshold where you once thrived in a particular style may wane in acute duress or health conditions.

These categories are invitations to conscious self-awareness, not limitations.

2. The Integration Arc

While identifying learning preferences is illuminating, it is not the entire picture.

In NSR programming, we guide you through a living framework for integration, a rhythm that mirrors how ecosystems learn: sensing, reflecting, and acting.

• Narrative-Based Comprehension — developing language, structure, story, and context.

→ For example, after a sensory walk through the forest, we might map the experience through storytelling, scientific language, or mythic imagery — giving shape to what the body has already perceived and develop a didactic lesson for you to lead with in your community.

• Curiosity-Based Contemplation — allowing insights to settle, compost, and deepen.

→ This might look like silent reflection under a tree, breath-led inquiry, or asking more intelligent questions rather than rushing to answers.

• Somatic Embodiment — bringing learning into direct physical and relational experience.

→ You might integrate through barefoot walking, movement rituals, tending the land, or group practices that bring the lesson into the body’s memory and Earth impact.

This triad is the heart of how NSR transmits knowledge. We don’t just give you information; we create the conditions where your whole system learns.

(The full methodology is taught in NSR trainings and interwoven into every offering.)

3. Why This Matters

When you understand your learning style, your capacity for integration expands.

Instead of forcing yourself to learn in someone else’s language, you begin to meet yourself where you are—and grow from there with intention.

• You stop confusing overwhelm with failure.

• You stop mistaking discomfort for incapacity.

• You start learning like a living organism, not a machine model.

Learning isn’t a straight line but a spiral of wisdom.

It’s a living rhythm that feels like remembering the lyrics to a long-forgotten song.

4. The Missing Link:

As a teacher, clinician, artist, or entrepreneur, learning expands into leading. As a program participant of NSR, you:

• Explore your primary and secondary learning styles — and watch how they shift.

• Engage visually, auditorily, kinesthetically, and reflectively in different ways to absorb multidisciplinary models.

• Be met where you are, while being gently stretched beyond what’s familiar.

• Allow learning to happen through your whole being—mind, body, spirit, and relational field.

• Refine your ability to interpret, understand, and offer your own participants, students, or clients a multitude of learning styles.

• Adjust integral messaging and business models to suit your growing needs and match that of your demographic.

If you’re curious about your own capacity and as not just information, but integration and excited to discover where where learners become leaders, explore NSR.