Learning to Live in Your Body Again

A reflection on trauma, nervous system healing, and the courage to feel

I know what it’s like to live in a sick body with no hope of healing. I know what it’s like to lose joy in the things I once loved. I know what it’s like to be lonely and in pain.

When I was 22, I watched my mom suffer through stomach cancer and then swiftly leave this earth. I was left with PTSD that infiltrated every corner of my life. Trauma begets trauma begets trauma — and without realizing it, I found myself in an abusive marriage, followed by chronic workaholism, an autoimmune condition, severe depression and anxiety, and addiction.

It was miserable to live in my body. I felt sick and fatigued all the time. I resented my body for betraying me, especially after everything I had already endured.

Through some miracle, I got sober, left my marriage, and scraped together every extra penny to see a therapist. This therapy was different from anything I had experienced before. Instead of filling the session with words, she helped me listen to my body.

Slowly, I began to feel safe for the first time in my life.

One day she said something that transformed the way I approached healing:
“Healing is 90% heart, 10% head.”

As I lived into that truth over the next two years, something shifted. My heart softened. My fatigue began to ease. I could eat. I could sleep. I began to come back to life.

Something I’ve learned is this: when it isn’t safe to live in your body, your only option is to live in your head.

The mind is not the enemy. It’s doing its job — detecting patterns, protecting you from harm, solving problems. Its role is to monitor, not to feel. But so often, it becomes overloaded with the responsibility of healing while the body takes a back seat.

Over time, the communication between mind and body weakens — sometimes disconnecting entirely.

And when you can’t hear your body’s subtle cues, it gets louder.

It speaks in chronic tension. Inflammation. Headaches. Digestive distress. Rapid heart rate. Cortisol and adrenaline flooding your system. Chronic pain. Shallow breathing.

Your body is not punishing you. It is trying to protect you.

Your nervous system is brilliant at keeping you alive in the face of danger. Through automatic, immediate responses, it moves you into survival states — mobilizing you to fight or flee, or helping you dissociate when what’s happening is too much to bear.

These responses are instinctual reflexes, not cognitive choices.

Your trauma response is not your fault.
Your anxious mind is not your fault.
Even your illness is not a personal failure.

As Gabor Maté writes,
“No person is their disease and no one did it to themselves, not in any conscious, deliberate, or culpable sense. Disease is an outcome of generations of suffering, of social conditions, of cultural conditioning, of childhood trauma, of physiology bearing the brunt of people’s stresses and emotional histories — all interacting with the physical and psychological environment.”

So how do you begin to live in your body when you’ve been surviving in your mind?

I’m not telling you to shut your mind off. You need both. The goal is communication — harmony. Letting the mind and body do the jobs they were designed for.

You cannot think your way into healing.

You have to feel.

Enter the heart.

The medicine is slowly learning to sit in discomfort long enough to be with your body.

Here is a simple practice to begin:

Step 1
Get quiet. Close your eyes. Scan your body for sensation. Notice tension. Notice your breath. Where is your attention naturally pulled?

Step 2
Bring gentle focus to the area that feels loudest. Thank it for protecting you. Acknowledge that this is a state your body is in — not who you are. Be with the sensation without becoming it.

Step 3
Without trying to fix or change anything, place a hand on that area. Maybe you massage it gently. Maybe you hug yourself, use a weighted blanket, move, shake, or even scream. This is a moment to offer support and safety — not to override what you feel.

Because trauma is often too much, too soon, we must move slowly.

For some, feeling at all can be distressing — especially if dissociation was once necessary for survival. This is why titration matters. We approach sensation in small doses so we don’t overwhelm the nervous system.

Imagine starving in the desert and suddenly finding a burger. If you devour it in two minutes, your body might reject it. You take small bites. You let yourself digest.

The goal of this work is not to eliminate pain or only feel good. It’s to expand your nervous system’s capacity — to hold grief and joy, sorrow and aliveness.

The goal is to live again.

This work is simple. But it is not easy.

It can be uncomfortable. Painful. And it is also the doorway to easing your suffering.

From one survivor to another, I can tell you: learning to live in your body again is one of the most beautiful, loving things you will ever do for yourself. To accept and re-parent the parts of you that were abused, abandoned, or silenced — not only by others, but sometimes by you.

You are worthy of healing.
You are capable of healing.

I see you. I believe in you.

This is not the end.
It is the beginning.

This kind of healing is not meant to be done alone.

If you’re longing for a space where your nervous system can exhale — where your body is welcomed, not fixed — I offer somatic courses and guided spaces designed for exactly that.

You deserve support as you learn to live in your body again.

You can learn more about working together here.