Why Your Body Keeps Reacting to Development Work — Even When Everything Looks “Normal”
A trauma-informed guide for humanitarian and development professionals who feel constantly on edge, emotionally numb, or unable to fully switch off.
Download this free guide and discover:
- Why your stress response is different from normal workplace stress
- Why meditation and mindfulness often fail for development professionals
- The four nervous system patterns common in humanitarian workers
- How trauma-informed approaches help your body regulate again
- A simple framework to start working with your nervous system rather than fighting it
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ABOUT KOEN
Where Experience Leads the Way
Over the past three decades, I’ve worked across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa in humanitarian and development contexts — including post-conflict environments and high-pressure field settings. My work with the United Nations (UNDP, UNEP, DPKO), international NGOs, and multi-stakeholder partnerships placed me directly inside the realities many development professionals know well: complex crises, high responsibility, constant uncertainty, and exposure to human suffering.
For many years, I believed that resilience simply meant pushing through.
But personal experiences — including surviving life-threatening events and working for prolonged periods in environments where the nervous system is constantly on alert — eventually made something clear to me: the impact of this work doesn’t simply disappear when we leave the field, take a break, or change roles.
Our bodies remember.
That realization led me to study trauma-informed approaches, nervous system regulation, and somatic recovery methods specifically relevant to professionals working in crisis and development environments.
Today, through the REgrounded™ framework, I combine my lived field experience with trauma-informed coaching approaches to help humanitarian and development professionals:
• understand how their nervous system has adapted to crisis work
• regulate stress responses that persist long after the workday ends
• reconnect with presence, clarity, and emotional balance
• continue meaningful work without sacrificing their wellbeing.
REgrounded™ was created because the challenges development professionals face are unique — and the support we offer them should be equally specific.
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