Nisha Bal
"I started Seeds because I wanted therapy to happen in the places children actually live. That hasn't changed."
The conditions that shape a person
What interests me most about occupational therapy is trying to understand the conditions that come together to shape a person. How the body, the nervous system, the mind, emotions, daily routines, relationships, environment, school experiences and habits all come together to create wellness, and how the same things can create difficulty.
That's what I love about it. It's a chance to look at the whole picture, and to intervene at almost any level where there might be a therapeutic benefit.
It's also where the name comes from. Sometimes you can't change things overnight. What you can do is plant little seeds and create the conditions for growth. If you put the right seeds into the right conditions and tend to them, things grow. If the conditions aren't right, different things grow.
Occupational therapy, for me, is an ongoing exploration of how things come to be the way they are, and how we might gently intervene.
What's around it, and what's underneath
When I'm thinking about a child's behaviour, I'm usually thinking about what's around it and what's underneath it. These are the kinds of questions I'm interested in:
- What's happening in their nervous system?
- What's happened during their day?
- Do they feel safe? Do they feel heard?
- Enough play, movement and connection?
I'm often interested in the gap between what a child is being asked to do and what they can realistically do with the support they currently have. A lot of the difficulty sits in that gap.
Helping a child is rarely just about the child. It's about understanding the conditions around them and adjusting those conditions where possible. And when I think about children, I also think about families. I don't think the two can really be separated.
What I do to stay regulated
Regulation matters to me, personally and professionally. The way I regulate myself gives me insight into how other people regulate themselves. When I talk with families about the body, the environment and daily rhythms, it's because these are things I pay attention to in my own life.
Yoga
A somatic, breath-focused practice for around ten years, and I teach it too. Less about flexibility, more about staying connected to the body and noticing what's happening there.
Meditation
Most days. Not because I have it sorted, but because returning to it changes how I show up, in sessions and at home.
Both are ongoing ways of learning about regulation and awareness, and how different conditions shape our experience. That curiosity keeps shaping my work.
The environment is one of the conditions
My home reflects a lot of what I believe clinically, not by design but accumulated over time. There are tatami mats in the main living area, for floor sitting, rolling and stretching. There's a sensory swing in the living space, not tucked away, just part of the room. We're screen-light, not rigidly, but with a rhythm that leaves space for boredom, for making things, for play that goes nowhere in particular.
The environment isn't a backdrop to behaviour. It's one of the conditions producing it.
I think about this in sessions constantly: what a child's bedroom, kitchen, classroom and afternoon are asking of their nervous system. Small changes to those spaces often matter more than anything I could teach.
What I bring into the room
I'm playful, comfortable on the floor, and I have a reasonably high tolerance for chaos and noise, which helps when you're working in someone's home. I follow the child's lead more than I follow a plan, not because I don't have a clinical direction, but because what a child chooses to do is usually more informative than my agenda.
I use movement a lot. Rough and tumble, rolling, swinging, rhythm, just being nearby. Co-regulation doesn't always need words; it often happens through shared play, humour and physical closeness.
And I work with parents in the room rather than sending them out. What I notice, I say. What I'm trying, I explain. The goal is that by the end of a visit, the parent has something they can actually use for the rest of the week.
Thinking out loud
I've been sitting with how to hold uncertainty with families in a way that feels honest rather than unsettling. How to say "I don't know yet, and here's what I'm looking at" without losing their confidence. Families respond to that much better than I expected earlier in my career.
I'm also continuing to read into somatic and developmental movement frameworks, particularly the work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, and noticing how developmental movement patterns show up in the children I work with.
And I keep returning to a question about the conditions of modern family life: the pace, the screens, the reduction in outdoor time and unstructured play. I don't think it's useful to be moralistic about it, but it's hard to do this work without noticing what families are swimming in.
A note that changes as my thinking does.