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, 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 somatics?
There are a million healing modalities out there. Ice baths. Breathwork. Journaling. Cold plunges. Vipassana retreats. So how do you know when it’s time to start doing somatic work?
We’ve got opinions. Especially Ana.
If you’ve been in therapy for years, if you’ve processed your story a dozen different ways, but still feel stuck, like you know exactly what’s wrong but can’t seem to change it, somatics might be (read: probably is) the next layer.
Or perhaps you feel cut off from and confused by parts of yourself: the tension in your back that never dissipates, anxiety spirals that come out of nowhere, insomnia that laughs at melatonin. Somatics can offer both insight and relief for these mysteries.
At it’s core, somatics is about meeting your body's sensations and emotions with curiosity rather than resistance. As you learn to read your nervous system's signals, the things you feel stop seeming so arbitrary. Instead of fighting your body's responses — because yes, they are responses — you begin working with them. And what felt broken reveals itself as simply unheard.
(If you want a more complete definition of somatics, check out this post.)
Common signs that somatics could help:
You’ve been diagnosed with an idiopathic illness (aka, symptoms no one can explain)
You’re chronically exhausted, inflamed, or in pain
You’ve hit a plateau in therapy or mindset work
You feel like your body is saying “no,” even when your brain is saying “go”
You want to change a pattern, but can’t seem to move forward
You’re reactive in ways you don’t understand, and that don’t match the current moment
If any of these resonate, you’re not alone. And you’re not broken. These are valid responses from your internal, intelligent system that’s actually doing its best to protect you…
Which is where trauma comes in.
Understanding trauma and somatics.
Somatics is, first and foremost, a trauma-informed modality. But before you scroll down, thinking, “that’s not me”, let’s take a moment to redefine trauma through a somatic lens.
Here’s the truth: most of us carry trauma, whether we realize it or not. It’s not just war zones or car crashes or catastrophic events.
Trauma is what lingers in the body after the nervous system has been overwhelmed by the intensity or frequency of an experience.
It’s not the event itself, but what happens inside of us in response to the event.
When safety, belonging, or dignity are threatened, and the experience comes on too fast, too much, too soon, or not enough for too long, the body may not be able to complete its natural self-protective response (like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn). When the energy of this stress response isn’t fully processed or discharged, it can leave behind lasting physiological and emotional patterns — what we often experience as stuckness, disconnection, or chronic activation.
These are the symptoms of trauma, aka the body’s way of saying, “Something didn’t get to finish.” Your mind might understand that it’s over, that you are safe. But your body doesn’t. And so it’s on the look out for anything that echoes that intense experience…
Inevitably, when something in the present reminds your body of that past overwhelm, your system hits the brakes. Then no amount of cognitive reasoning can override that. Pressing the gas harder won’t do a thing when your body’s foot is still firmly on the brake.
In other words, the body doesn’t care how many affirmations you recite or how many mindset meditations your try. It cares whether it feels safe. And if it doesn’t, pushing is not only futile, it can actually make your body clamp down harder.
Somatics invites a different approach to this stress-response stuckness. It helps you slow down, listen, and build safety inside your system, so that eventually your body can take its foot off the brake.
That’s when things start to shift.
The tangible benefits of somatic work.
Here’s what we’ve experienced (and what we see in our clients):
1. Self-trust
Somatics builds the self-awareness that make good boundaries and good decisions possible. Not just “I know what I’m thinking,” but “I know what I’m feeling. I can feel my body’s no. I can feel my body’s yes.” And when your body knows that your mind won’t steamroll it? That’s where self-trust is born.
2. Forward momentum
So many people think they lack willpower or discipline. But the truth is, it’s not about trying harder. If your nervous system perceives threat, it will stop you, no matter how badly you want it. When we work somatically with those parts, we create safety. And safety allows for forward progress again.
3. Symptom relief for chronic conditions
Somatic work doesn’t promise a cure, but it does offer an explanation for why your body may be stuck in a stress response. In Ana’s case, fibromyalgia, chronic Lyme, and inflammation began to shift in lasting ways after she addressed the underlying trauma and stress that her body was clenching against.
Side-rant: Why stress is somatic.
Let’s talk about stress. And digestion. And how they’re deeply connected.
When your body perceives threat, real or imagined, it shifts into a sympathetic nervous system state, commonly referred to as fight-or-flight. Your heart rate increases. Your breathing speeds up. Your muscles tense. And — crucially — blood flow to your digestive system slows way down.
Because when you're facing a threat, your body isn't trying to digest a meal. It’s trying to run and fight and think and hide. Digestion can wait.
However, when we drop the nervous system of a caveman into 2025, it can’t tell the difference between running from a tiger and stressing over an inbox of 200 emails, a fight with your partner, the state of the world. It reacts with fight-or-flight — which is how we all end up wired but exhausted at the same time.
Some people are able to deactivate this stress response with exercise, breathwork, meditation, substances. But for some people, their system stays in this activated state for days, months, or years… Years of their body shunting blood, fuel, and nourishment away from the digestive tract. Unsurprisingly, this is when we start to see issues like IBS, bloating, and indigestion. If we look at the whole body, it also explains why shallow breathing, chronic tension, exhaustion, and insomnia are so prevalent.
This is your nervous system doing what it was designed to do, but in a context it wasn’t designed to do it in. So it’s doing it nonstop, because most bodies never get the signal that the danger has passed.
Somatic practices help the body get that signal. They support your system in recognizing safety, belonging, and dignity again. And once that happens, digestion can return, breathing can deepen, and the body can downshift.
That’s when healing begins. That’s when presence becomes possible. That’s when life starts to feel like yours again.
So where can you start?
With awareness. Seriously. Don’t skip this step.
We live in a world that trains us out of listening to our bodies. We're taught to override discomfort, push through, numb out, and just keep going. So when we begin somatic work, the first task is to rebuild that lost connection, to return to our internal landscape with curiosity and care.
This work doesn’t begin with “releasing” or “healing” or doing anything big. It begins by noticing. Here are three foundational practices that anyone can try:
1. Soma Check-In
This is the most basic building block. Just say out loud:
“In my body, I’m noticing [sensation]. I’m experiencing [emotion].”
That’s it. You’re not interpreting, analyzing, or trying to fix anything. You're simply practicing presence with what’s here.
You might notice tightness in your jaw. Warmth in your chest. Sadness behind your eyes. Excitement in your belly. There are no right answers, just honest noticing. This helps you build fluency in your felt sense, which is the language of the body.
Once you have awareness, you can start to track your state. You realize what “activated” feels like and what “settled” feels like; then you can start to unwind chronic over-activation.
2. Self Contact
Self contact is exactly what it sounds like: touching your own body.
Hand on your heart. Hand on your belly. Rub your jaw. Squeeze your legs. Massage your temples.
This is something we already do instinctively — when we’re upset, we rub our face, wrap our arms around ourselves. Somatic practice just asks you to do it with awareness and intention.
As you make contact, notice the sensation in your hands and in the part of your body you're touching. Pendulate between the two. This bilateral attention helps deepen your connection to your sensory experience.
And here’s what to look for: yawn, sigh, or swallow. These are signs that your parasympathetic nervous system — the one responsible for “rest and repair” — is coming online.
If you’re yawning during a somatic practice, it doesn’t mean you’re bored. It means your system is settling.
3. Grounding
Grounding is not woo. It’s physics.
You are literally being pulled toward the earth by gravity. Grounding is about feeling that pull, and letting yourself be held by it.
Start by noticing any place your body makes contact with a surface: Your feet on the floor. Your hips in a chair. Your back against a wall. Shift your weight. Wiggle. Bounce. Let yourself feel the pressure beneath you. It sounds simple but it lets your body know that you are literally are stable ground. You are supported.
One of our favorite grounding practices is heel drops.
Stand on your tiptoes, then drop your heels back to the ground. Feel the impact travel through your body — up through your ankles, knees, hips, spine, all the way to your jaw and the top of your head. That ripple of sensation is your nervous system taking in the message: I’m here. I’m not running or fighting. I’m safe enough to land.
These practices might seem simple. That’s the point.
We’ve been taught to push through discomfort and override our body’s signals to stop. Through somatics, we are re-learning to listen to the subtle signs of our body, while our body learns that we aren’t going to push it beyond it’s capacity. This is where safety — and the ability to heal — begins.
If this feels like too much.
If you’re reading these practices and realizing that being in your body — connecting with your bodily sensations in this way — doesn’t feel safe, that’s not a failure. That’s not resistance to barrel through. That’s important data.
For some people even the gentlest practices, like placing a hand on the heart or taking a deep breath, can stir up anxiety, discomfort, or panic. That doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. It means your system learned, somewhere along the way, that it wasn’t safe.
And even today, your body is trying to protect you the best way it knows.
So if reconnecting with your body brings up overwhelm, it’s a sign to go slower. Way slower. And ideally, not alone.
This is where a trained somatic practitioner comes in: someone who understands how to read your nervous system’s cues, who can help you titrate the work, and who knows when to pause or pivot. Practitioners trained in Somatic Experiencing (SEP), or other body-based, trauma-informed modalities can help you build safety from the inside out.
Foundations for coming home.
Somatics isn’t just for those healing trauma. It’s foundational work for anyone learning to reconnect with their body.
If you’re someone who lives in your head, who intellectualizes your emotions, who thrives on structure and logic but struggles to feel, this work meets you exactly where you are.
It offers a way back. A path toward presence, ease, and aliveness.
P.S. The gentler you can be, the faster you’ll get there.
In next week’s episode, we explore the signs you are ready for embodiment. It takes the work of somatics to a whole new level, especially when it comes to authentic self-expression. Hope to see you there!
