Michelle Dalley is someone whose work genuinely makes me lean in and listen. In this conversation, we explore Havening - a psychosensory technique that uses the science of touch to shift the brain into a state where stress dissolves, performance unlocks, and lasting change becomes possible.
What I love most about Michelle's approach is how she brings this into the heart of leadership coaching - helping high performers regulate their nervous systems, clear what's blocking them, and step into high-pressure moments with real confidence. If you've ever wanted to understand the neuroscience behind why some people thrive under pressure and others freeze, this one's for you.
5 Key Points
1. Havening works by creating delta wave states through soothing touch.
Three specific touch points — the face, upper arms, and palms — activate specialised skin receptors that shift the brain into delta wave state, the same state associated with deep sleep. This heightened neuroplasticity creates the conditions to release trauma encoding and re-encode new, resourceful states. It can be done in any moment, including discreetly in public, making it a genuinely accessible self-regulation tool.
2. Trauma encoding is at the root of much of what blocks high-performing leaders.
Michelle found consistently through leadership coaching that anxiety, imposter syndrome, and performance fears often trace back to earlier distressing experiences — frequently from school — that have been encoded in the brain as threat responses. Havening depotentiates that encoding, clearing the path for genuine growth rather than managing symptoms indefinitely.
3. A regulated coach or leader regulates the people around them.
Co-regulation is not soft language — it's neuroscience. Gallup research shows a person's direct leader accounts for 70% of their engagement at work. When leaders are dysregulated, their teams feel it and mirror it. When coaches are dysregulated, their clients feel that too. Self-regulation is not a personal luxury; it's a professional responsibility.
4. Havening and NLP combine to create rapid, deep-level state change.
Michelle has developed her own confidence-encoding process that layers Havening touch with NLP visualisation — anchoring peak performance states into the nervous system in a single session. She uses it to prepare clients for job interviews, high-stakes presentations, and critical conversations, with results she describes as immediate and lasting.
5. Investing in your own development is non-negotiable at master level.
Every year without exception, Michelle allocates significant resources to her own learning. She began her career technically-focused and emotionally closed. Every modality she now brings to clients — NLP, Havening, trauma-informed coaching — she first put herself through. Her breadth isn't a collection of credentials; it's a lived practice of becoming.
If you would like to get in touch with Michelle, you can find her here: website | Linkedin
