Welcome to the very first episode of The Body Knows podcast!
We are trying a new format — more talking, less writing. Because two brains are better than one, but really anything is better than staring at a blank google doc.
So going forward, each Wednesday you will receive a recorded conversation about somatics, embodiment, and everything in between in your inbox. You can listen here or on your favorite podcast app, or watch us gesticulate on YouTube.
Not a podcast person? No worries. We'll include a digest with each episode so you can get the gist without committing to our voices in your ears. Fair warning: the conversations will definitely go deeper than the digests. Maybe that'll convert you to audio learning, maybe it won't. Either way, we're happy you're here.
Onto the show!
In this episode, we return to one of the most essential, and most often misunderstood, aspects of somatics:
What does it actually mean to feel your feelings?
We talk about the difference between understanding and metabolizing emotion, the trap of over-intellectualizing your pain, and how to start building the skills that help you move energy through your body — gently, safely, and yes, even enjoyably.
Whether you’re new to somatics or deep in the work, this one is a grounded place to begin, or begin again.
How intellectualizing keeps us stuck:
Even in somatic spaces, people often end up explaining their emotions more than feeling them. We say things like:
“I’m feeling overwhelmed right now… because my abandonment wound is being activated.”
Therapy and self-awareness can help us name our wounds, but that’s not the same thing as processing them. We can understand our story inside and out and still be stuck in the same patterns, still carrying the same energetic charge.
But many of us have been taught that cognitive understanding is the bedrock of all solutions, emotional and otherwise — because when we know better, we can do better… So we keep digging deeper and deeper into intellectualizing our experience, instead of looking for a different way.
What emotions actually are:
Emotions are not mental concepts. They’re bodily, sensory experiences.
Whether we’re aware of it or not, our bodies are carrying and reacting to emotions all the time — contracting, expanding, tightening, loosening. We say things like:
“I felt a pit in my stomach.”
“My heart sank.”
“I got chills when they said that.”
That’s somatics. That’s embodiment. That’s your felt-sense experience.
When we talk about resolving emotional patterns, that resolution needs to happen through the body.
It’s energy, and energy needs to move:
One way to think about emotion is as energy in motion. Every feeling has a quality — maybe it’s fiery and hot, maybe it’s buzzy and fast, maybe it’s dense and heavy.
Rather than asking, “Why do I feel this way?” try asking:
“What does this energy feel like in my body?”
“How can I support it to move through me and be expressed or released?”
It might sound woowoo, but really it’s a primal aspect of our humanity that we simply don’t have good language for. Our bodies innately know the process of bringing us back from a state of emotional activation to calmness. This is why we cry when we’re upset, why we want to smash something when we’re pissed, and why we sometimes literally jump for joy.
Here are a few practices for relearning this capacity — some more structured, some intuitive:
The Daily Soma Check-In:
This is a foundational tool to build awareness of your emotional state.
(Yes, we all want to get to the release part, but we can only release when we are able to feel what needs to be released.)
The practice is simple. Just pause to connect with your inner landscape… and complete the sentence: “In my body, I’m noticing [sensation], and I’m experiencing [emotion].”
Notice, there’s no “because” anywhere in the check-in. This part’s important. You’re not tracing what you’re feeling back to childhood, you’re not rationalizing it. You’re just checking in with your felt-sense experience.
Here are some examples:
“In my body, I’m noticing pressure on my sit bones, and I’m experiencing contentment.”
“In my body, I’m noticing tightness in my chest, and I’m experiencing anxiety.”
Boom. You’re building the neural pathway of emotional awareness. Now your emotions won’t sneak up on you, and so they’re less likely to express themselves at inconvenient or hurtful times.
Tip: Tie it to something you already do. Check in every time you get in the car, or perhaps while brushing your teeth. It can take 10 seconds.
Move, Breathe, Sound:
There’s your chant, your process, your instructions.
Because emotions are stored in the body, moving the body helps to move emotions. Kids do this naturally: they stomp, they shriek, they sprint away, they cry and then laugh and cry again, all in 20 seconds. It’s pure somatic practice.
But while kids are masters, most of us need to start a little smaller:
Put on a song that matches your emotional state, and move however your body wants
Huff, sigh, hiss
Stomp, sway, shake
Growl, groan, grumble
Push against a wall or wring out a towel
DON’T overthink it. There is no “right”. You are simply experimenting with what helps you release this energy. Your body will guide you if you stay open minded.
You can also workout or go on a run with the intention of processing whatever emotion is boiling in you. That means as you exercise, you allow the emotion bubble to the surface of your consciousness — coming out in tears, simmering rage, or a feeling that you shredding through the frustration in your way. Which also means you aren’t using the exertion to avoid what you’re feeling or distract yourself with endorphins.
Make it playful:
One of our favorite tools is the playful tantrum.
It’s what it sounds like: stomping around, yelling dramatically into a pillow, hitting the bed with a cushion like a five-year-old. Not because you’re trying to be theatrical, but because you’re letting your body express its angst in a way that isn’t going to ruin your relationships or your drywall.
There’s something strangely liberating about being able to meet your heavier emotions with levity. It essentially tells your system, we’re safe to feel this. We’re safe to express this.
Maybe it sounds ridiculous, but don’t knock it ‘til you try it!
Start small. Start with dessert.
When exploring the world of somatic and embodiment, we don’t begin by processing our biggest traumas. That would overwhelm the system. We start with noticing the small, good things:
Put on a favorite song and let your body move with it. Feel the sun on your face. Notice the sensation of clean sheets on your skin. Feel how joy moves through your body.
This builds your capacity to land in your body — without tipping into “too much, too fast, too soon.”
Especially if you have a trauma history (which, let’s be real, most of us do), you want to move slowly and gently. Trying to dive in too deep right away can re-trigger the wound and reinforce the belief that it’s not safe to feel.
One last reframe:
When you repress one emotion, you don’t just shut down the hard ones. You also lose access to the good stuff. You can’t just stop part of the river. You end damming the entire thing.
When you block grief, you block joy. When you block fear, you block freedom. When you block anger, you block your sense of aliveness.
Your capacity to surrender to sadness is the same as your capacity to surrender to bliss.
It’s not moralistic or spiritual. It’s just the way the nervous system works.
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