The Body Knows is where we say the quiet parts out loud about healing, somatics and embodiment, and why trying to “fix yourself” never really works. If that makes you exhale, hit subscribe on YouTube, here on Substack, or your favorite podcast app.
(If podcasts aren’t your thing, you can find a digest of the podcast below. Alternatively if videos are your thing, you can watch the recording of the podcast here.)
Is it time for you to explore embodiment?
We live in a culture of transcendence. Mindfulness mediations, mindset hacks, and affirmation lists galore.
But what if we want more than shutting out our spinning thoughts? What if we actually want to do something about the stress tightening our gut, the grief that lurks behind certain memories, the lingering feeling that there’s got to be more than just “getting through” life?
That's where embodiment comes in.
We defined this way of being in both a previous podcast and previous post, but in case you missed it, here’s a summary:
Embodiment is what happens when you stop treating your emotions like problems to solve and start experiencing them as messengers with something important to say. It's the difference between white-knuckling your way through stress or letting the emotion move through you on a run, between swallowing your grief or locking yourself in your room to sob your eyes out.
But embodiment isn't just a method of emotional release, it's a complete rewiring of how you show up in the world. The woman who used to apologize for taking up space starts speaking her mind. The people-pleaser who's spent decades managing everyone else's comfort began setting boundaries that actually held. The man whose rage used to explode unpredictably learns to channel that fire into fierce protection of what matters most. This isn't performance or strategy; it's what happens when your inner truth finally has permission to move through your voice, your posture, your choices (instead of sneaking out in messy, inappropriate ways).
As Ana puts it: “Somatics taught me it was safe to feel what I feel. Embodiment taught me it was safe to authentically express what I feel, and who I am.”
Why embodiment matters.
In summary, embodiment helps us develop:
Healthy emotional expression — you can express what you’re feeling without shutting down or exploding.
Expanded range, emotionally and physically — you stop living a smaller life or smaller version of yourself in order to stay “in control.”
Emotional clarity — you can feel the difference between a trauma response and a clean “no.”
Attuning to others — you can feel into the state of those around you, for the sake of empathizing or calling bullshit.
Full-body alignment — when your brain, your heart, your intuition, your inner child all want the same thing, nothing can stop you.
What does this actually look like in daily life? Let’s break it down.
How to let emotions move without making a mess.
Many of us have come to see big emotions as dangerous — signs of weakness, destructive to our relationships, or at least annoying to those around us. But when we keep emotions pent up, they don’t disappear. They sneak out sideways. We’ve all lost it over something small after trying to pretend everything was fine… So when whenever we finally realize suppression isn’t a long-term solution, we have no idea how to let feelings flow without burning everything down.
Here's what Leona and Ana learned: start with containers. A quiet room, a trusted friend or professional, a pillow that can handle some rage or tears. Practice feeling in spaces that can hold your expression in all its messy glory.
As you clear the emotional backlog and get more comfortable with big emotions moving through your body, your calibration improves. You start sensing the difference between anger that shuts people down and anger that calls them in. Between grief that spirals into isolation and grief that cracks your heart open. Between sharing struggles to get pity versus authentically asking for support.
Emotional expression doesn't have to look like projecting onto others or using your pain as a weapon. It can be saying and showing how you feel without needing revenge, to be right, or someone to fix it. Sacred rage says "this stops here." Destructive rage says "you owe me." One creates change, the other creates more hurt.
Avoiding feelings shrinks your life.
What parties do you skip because you don’t want to see someone? What activities have you quit because they dredge up a painful memory? What daily tasks do you dread because they remind you of something you rather forget?
This isn't about simple preference. This is about how much real estate in your life has been cordoned off by unprocessed or unpleasant emotions.
Many of us don’t realize how much of our energy is being used trying to avoid feelings like insecurity, guilt, or grief. So instead of living, we are dodging triggers, avoiding reminders, shrinking ourselves to fit in the spaces left over.
But when you face the buried emotions and purposefully, gently release them, life gets bigger again.
Leona found herself going from shy wallflower to getting into dancing, performing on stage for hundreds of people. Eventually her cast voted her “Most Made to Be on Stage.” Before embodiment, she never even would have risked the audition, because the fear of any potential embarrassment was too much.
She was still so nervous before every performance she thought she might throw up. But now she knew she could survive forgetting the choreo, ripping her outfit, falling off the stage. The embarrassment would be uncomfortable as hell, but she’d get through it.
Learning to trust your emotional math.
Many of us see our emotions as rogue weather systems — unpredictable, overwhelming, and sometimes unrelated to what's actually happening. Minor feedback at work triggers three days of shame spirals. A friend doesn't text back and suddenly they hate you. The emotional math never adds up.
But when you stop fighting your feelings and instead gett curious about them, you start to notice the patterns. You can distinguish between a trauma response and a clean reaction to the present moment. Between your nervous system remembering old pain and your intuition picking up on something real happening right now.
As Ana puts it: "We're able to recognize, this is a legitimate anger response — the level I'm responding is in line with the context. Or we get to be like, wow, I'm triggered right now."
This discernment transforms your emotions from chaos into reliable information. That anxiety that used to derail you becomes data — you track its waves instead of getting hijacked by its intensity. The anger that felt terrifying becomes a clear signal: boundary crossed, conversation needed.
This is emotional clarity. It’s not the absence of big feelings, but the presence of trust in your own inner guidance system.
Reading the room (and making it safer).
Your expanded emotional awareness doesn't simply end at your skin. Through embodiment, you can start picking up on the unspoken truths in others’ bodies too.
You sense when someone's words don't match their energy, when someone is frustrated about something else but making it about this moment, when someone's fishing for sympathy versus genuinely asking for support. Your bullshit detector comes online, but so does something more precious: your capacity to create safety for truth.
When you've sat with your own grief, you don't flinch when others show theirs. When you've learned to express rage cleanly, you can witness someone else's fire without needing to extinguish it.
This kind of presence is medicine in a world obsessed with performing okay-ness. When you can witness someone's messy humanity without judgment or trying to fix it, you give them permission to drop the act. Your embodiment becomes an invitation: You can be real here. You can stop pretending.
Your healing becomes contagious simply because you've become a space where authenticity is safe.
When all parts of you say “yes”.
You likely know misalignment intimately.
It’s when your brain is listing off all the logical reasons this choice makes sense, but your body is full of tension just imagining taking the next step. Part of you is hitting the gas while another part slams the brakes. Of course, you can force your way forward — many of us do — but you'll spend the whole journey fighting yourself.
Alignment is the opposite — your logic, emotions, body, and deeper knowing are all pointing in the same direction. Maybe you feel it as you finally leave a draining job or stand up for something you believe in. You haven’t eliminated all fear or figured everything out. Rather, the different layers of you are all saying the same thing: “Yes. This. Now.”
In this way, embodiment goes beyond just “feel your feelings”. It rebuilds the conversation between all the versions of yourself. Instead of living top-down — brain forcing the rest of the body to get in line with its decision — you make choices that take your emotional body, your intuitive knowing, your nervous system’s capacity, your physical health into account.
When that happens, you become what Leona calls “a force of fucking nature.” Not because you're perfect, but because you're finally not working against yourself.
Getting started: Three beginner-friendly practices
PSA: embodiment is designed to be messy. Because our inner worlds are messy!
So if you're waiting to feel “ready” or “have all the info” before doing these practices, you’ll be waiting forever. Just remind yourself, these practices aren't performance pieces — they're invitations to get to know what’s going on beneath your skin.
1. Pleasure Practice — attuning to your inner world in the most enjoyable way possible.
Put on one song. Seriously, just one. Now ask yourself: what feels good right now? Maybe it's the way your shoulders drop when you exhale. Maybe it's rubbing your palms on your arms, your neck. Maybe it's scratching your head.
As the song continues, just keep following what feels good. If this is already a stretch for you, stay right here.
When it feels easy to feel and follow the pleasure, now we can add the next step: helping the pleasure expand through your body.
Here’s an example from Leona’s pleasure practice this morning. “I was sitting outside, stretching in the sun. I noticed how good the sun felt on my face, so I turned towards it, allowing more skin to feel the warmth. I then brought my attention to that layer of heat and pictured it as gold liquid oozing into my pores. I sighed deeply, letting my jaw go slack and shoulders relax. I gave myself to the sensation of the warmth, and moved, breathed, sounded, visualized in anyway that helped the pleasure sink in more deeply.”
If this feels awkward when you first try it, GREAT. That means you’re pushing your comfort zone and expanding into new territory of pleasure and enjoyment.
You're not trying to become a god or goddess of pleasure on the first try. You're just practicing saying yes to one drop of goodness at a time. Most of us are so used to rushing past pleasure that even noticing it is revolutionary.
2. Emotion in Motion — practicing emotional expression and releasing bottled up emotions.
Pick a song that matches an emotion you either want to practice expressing, or you can feel calling to be expressed. Maybe it's the rage you've been swallowing, the grief you've been postponing, or even the joy you've been too self-conscious to let out.
Press play. Now let your body take the shape of that feeling. What does grief look like in your shoulders? How does your jaw want to hold anger? What does your face do when you're genuinely happy?
Don't choreograph it. Don't make it pretty. You’re not dancing. You’re letting this emotion move through you. Maybe you punch the air. Maybe you'll curl into a ball. Maybe you'll find yourself making weird noises.
The goal isn’t to reach catharsis or have a big breakthrough, though that can happen. You are simply give your emotions permission to express themselves, instead of staying stuck in your head.
3. Mind–Heart–Gut Check-In — creating a relationship with the different aspects of yourself.
At any moment — after a conversation, before a decision, when you're feeling unclear — ask different parts of your being: What do you feel? What do you want? What do you know?
Gently tap your temples and cheek bones while asking your mind all three questions: What do you feel? What do you want? What do you know? Generally the answers are quick to leap out — the analysis, the pros and cons, the logical assessment. Notice if your mind also has a certain energy around the situation: buzzy or settled, stubborn or unsure.
Then move your hand to your heart, and bring your awareness down to the emotional center of our body. Feel your lungs, your ribs expanding, maybe even your heart beat. When you feel like you’ve “arrived” at your heart, ask: What do you feel? What do you want? What do you know? Take your time noticing what comes up, often in the form of emotion or sensation: excitement, hesitation, warmth, constriction.
Finally, drop your hand to your belly. Breathe deeply, letting yourself drop deeper into your body with each exhale. You might also rock your hips, connecting with the bone and sinew of your pelvic bowl. Take slow breaths, letting your mind know its safe to hand over the reigns to a deeper, slower part of self. What do you feel? What do you want? What do you know? Our gut often speaks in sensations or textures: tight, open, heavy, light, dense, slippery.
Here's the tricky part: your mind will try to answer for all three centers. When you ask your heart what it wants, your brain might jump in with what it thinks your heart should want. That's normal. Just notice when it happens and gently redirect: “Thanks, brain. Now heart, what do you actually feel?”
It’s okay if the answers are different. In fact, that’s expected. Welcome whatever comes without pushing for consensus. This is how we rebuild the conversation between all parts of ourselves instead of letting our minds run the whole show.
Important Reminders:
Start with whichever practice you have the least resistance to. The goal isn't to do the practices perfectly. The goal is to do them at all.
In embodiment, there is no “right”, there is only what’s true. Even if what’s true is that you feel numb or silly or awkward or mad.
Start where you are. One sigh. One shake. One tear. That’s a win.
Safety matters. Unsafe containers reinforce the belief that expression isn’t welcome. Go slow. Go where you feel safe and supported.
Finally, you don’t have to know why you’re feeling something. You don’t need to explain it. Your body just needs is to be allowed to feel and express it fully.
Up Next:
Next week on The Body Knows, we dive into the link between somatics, trauma, and chronic illness.
We’re going full nerd: evolutionary context, nervous system pathways, and why your body might say no when your mind says go.
It's grounded, juicy, and probably a little rage-inducing. We can't wait.
