Michael is a Polyvagal Performance Consultant for coaches, managers, sports psychologists, teams and athletes within Major League Baseball MLB, The National Basketball Association NBA, Association of Tennis Professionals ATP, Women's Tennis Association WTA, Federation Internationale de Football Association FIFA, International Tennis Federation ITF, American Volleyball Coaches Association AVCA, USA Track & Field USATF, Association of Volleyball Professionals AVP, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association NCAA in a wide variety of sports.

He is an educational partner with Polyvagal Institute, and provides a variety of educational offerings, learning platforms and certification programs accredited by the National Board for Health & Wellness Coaches, and supported by Stephen W. Porges Ph.D., developer of Polyvagal Theory.

Michael was recently selected as a leading expert to teach Polyvagal Institute’s flagship course, and is a contributing author to a forthcoming Norton Book, Somatic-Oriented Therapies and Trauma, co-author with Dr. Porges of a chapter in a Norton Professional Series Book titled Polyvagal Perspectives, contributor to a chapter on Polyvagal Performance in a book titled Our Polyvagal World: How Safety & Trauma Change Us, a Norton Professional Series Publication, and contributor of a case study examining performance enhancement through physiological state regulation, a Sounds True publication. 

In 2020, Michael developed his unique Play Zone methodology, endorsed by Stephen W. Porges, Ph.D., and has since certified hundreds of professionals around the world utilizing his approach to optimize health, resilience & performance.

Michael is a public speaker on topics related to Polyvagal Theory, play, team building, leadership, resilience and performance and has been a featured presenter at a variety of conferences including sports performance, collegiate athletics, human resources, education and trauma recovery. In addition, Michael was a key speaker at the Polyvagal Institute’s Annual Summits in 2022 & 2023, and The Master Series in Oxford University, UK in August of 2023. 

Polyvagal Theory describes the science of how our autonomic nervous system continually scans the internal, external and relational environments for risk and safety, and adaptively shifts physiological state (i.e. neural regulation of visceral organs, bodily systems, heart rate, breathing, etc.) depending on whether the current conditions are subconsciously evaluated as safe, dangerous or overwhelming (i.e. life-threatening). These reflexive bodily reactions (i.e. changes in heart rate, breathing, tone of voice, facial expressions, etc.) impact every aspect of our health, wellness and performance, as well as influence how we interact with others and experience the world.

More than our subjective experience, when we feel safe, our body is in a physiological state supporting health, growth and restoration (i.e. homeostasis). Whereas, when we feel unsafe, our body is interrupting homeostasis and either expending resources to attack, defend or escape, or conserving what’s left and shutting things down in a last ditch effort to survive. These are adaptive survival responses triggered autonomically that follow a predictable pattern paralleling evolution in reverse versus being consciously planned, thinking-brain decisions. It is only when we feel safe in our body that we are optimizing our metabolic resources, internal bodily systems, and our patterns of responses, behaviors, and how we relate to others, in ways that promote our health, resilience and overall quality of life.

Therefore, as a Polyvagal-informed Coach we have three fundamental goals that we hold for ourselves and for our clients:

1. Meet the body where it is. We recognize whether we feel safe or unsafe, and respect that our bodily feelings have an underlying neurophysiology regulated by our autonomic nervous system.

2. Help the body to find, feel and absorb what’s safe to the body. In addition to threat, we have the capacity to detect cues of safety in the surrounding environment, within our own body, and through our interactions with others. We help ourselves to get better at seeing, hearing and feeling the features available to us that soothe, calm and reassure our body that we’re ok.

3. Build strategies, inner resources, habits, daily practices and relationships that promote feelings of safety and connection in the body.  We intentionally cultivate these spaces, places, actions and interactions that match our body’s biological needs for safety to counteract the competitive, evaluative, dynamically changing and uncertain climates of today.