My eyes glide around the cabinet checking each and every detail: disinfected surface of the table, chairs and stools each in its place, velvety textured rolls and head supports resting in their basket, guest slippers waiting in the doorway. I sip the last bit of herbal tea. Five minutes to the next appointment.
I observe how my mind is clearing up and creating space for the approaching interaction. What will this person come to me with? Would they be trustful or defensive? Will they bring curiosity and magnify the experience of the session or security is of higher priority for them today? I wait and focus on creating a safe space of non-judgement for them to come as they are.
Somatic Practitioner · Neuroplastic Chronic Pain and Nervous System Regulation · Luxembourg City
Iryna Sagaidak, PhD
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6+ years of specialising in neuroplastic chronic pain & nervous system regulation
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800+ hours of Feldenkrais professional training
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120+ clients served
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350+ hours of personal psychotherapy and ongoing supervision
The journey that brought me here
I came to this work through my own body's insistence.
For years, I lived with chronic pain — a burning tension between my shoulder blades, stabbing sensations in my mid-back, lower back ache that made sitting nearly impossible. Some days, I could only lie down or walk. Every position felt wrong. The pain wasn't just physical: it stole my confidence, my spontaneity, my trust in my own body.
I tried everything conventional medicine had to offer. Physiotherapy gave me relief for maybe 24 hours. Osteopathy helped temporarily. Yoga felt unsafe because I couldn't trust my body to move without consequence. Medical check-ups found nothing structurally wrong. The advice was always the same: stress less and do more sport.
But my body was trying to tell me something deeper. So I started digging. I studied anatomy and biochemistry. I trained in massage, both for others and for myself. I kept searching for something that could explain what was happening beneath the surface.
The real shift in direction came through a book: Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score. Reading about how psychological experience lives in the body — and how somatic approaches, including the Feldenkrais Method, could fundamentally change that — something clicked.
Then came the works of Dr Sarno and Dr Schubiner on the mind-body connection in chronic pain, and the picture became even clearer. I wasn't broken. I was held in patterns my nervous system had learned. And those patterns could be worked with.
I went to a weekend Feldenkrais workshop in Brussels. I booked a private hands-on session — sceptical, but desperate enough to try. And, something completely unexpected happened.
I'll never forget lying on that table. Soft, safe hands. Movements so gentle they were almost imperceptible. My body immediately trusted this practitioner's respectful, non-invasive touch. For an hour, I was guided through tiny, curious movements I had never experienced before.
When I stood up, something fundamental had shifted.
Standing felt easy. Effortless. Grounded. Then I walked — and for the first time in my life, I moved with such ease that I had the image of a rusty mechanism finally having its joints oiled. The difference was tremendous. I wanted to move. To dance. To express myself. I felt serene. I smiled.
For the first time in years, I had a taste of what it could feel like to live in my own body.
But something else became clear during that journey. I realised that no one else could wholeheartedly focus on my situation, dedicate the time to understand all its layers, and guide me through them with full attention.
Nobody but myself.
That realisation didn't discourage me — it empowered me. Healing wasn't going to come from someone fixing me. The path required me to take ownership of the process: to develop the internal capacity to sense myself, to listen to what my body had to say, and to re-establish a trusting relationship between body and mind.
That understanding is the foundation of how I work with my clients today.
The person behind the work
I live and practise in Luxembourg City, where I've created a space that feels safe, warm, and unhurried — the kind of space I needed during my own healing.
When I'm not working with clients, you might find me walking in nature (my nervous system's preferred form of regulation), reading research on neuroplasticity and somatic therapy, or sipping hot chocolate at Chocolats du Coeur on a Saturday afternoon with my husband.
I understand what it's like to be trapped inside your own protective mechanisms. The physical tension that won't release no matter what you try. The mental scanning that never quite switches off — the low hum of waiting for the next flare, the next bad day. The exhausting work of appearing fine when you're not. And the quiet grief of feeling like your body has become something to manage rather than something to live in.
I know how hard it is to convince your body it's safe to let go when it's been holding on for so long. And I know that with the right approach, that armour can slowly dissolve, that vigilance can ease, and you can come home to yourself again.
That's the work I'm here to do with you.
Professional Foundation
Professional training:
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800+ hours of Feldenkrais professional training
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1,200+ hours of Feldenkrais self-practice and somatic self-study
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90+ hours of Pain Reprocessing Therapy training
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110+ hours of Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy training and self-study
Client work:
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400+ hours of individual work with clients in chronic pain
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200+ hours of individual work with clients in nervous system regulation
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300+ hours of Feldenkrais group teaching
Supervision and personal development:
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350+ hours of personal psychotherapy and ongoing supervision
Academic background: PhD in Physical Chemistry
This combination isn't accidental. Through my own healing and years of client work, I learned that lasting relief from neuroplastic chronic pain requires working simultaneously with three elements: movement patterns through the Feldenkrais Method, nervous system regulation through Pain Reprocessing Therapy, and emotional processing through somatic emotional release. One without the others brings temporary relief. Together, they create a fundamental transformation.
If you feel called to this work, I look forward to welcoming you at a Discovery Session — a space to explore what's been happening in your body, for you to experience this work firsthand (already including the Feldenkrais hands-on part), and for us to map the clearest path forward for your specific situation.