Why the Body Matters in Healing

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, if you’re anything like me, you can probably wax lyrical about your less-than-ideal behaviors; you can articulate your limiting beliefs with aplomb, and you’ve most likely read every book that helps to explain why you act, say, or do what you do. 

But knowing something, and feeling or embodying something are two very different things…

At a certain point in my own healing journey, something felt like it was missing. I could understand my patterns and explain them beautifully. Honestly, I could give a TED talk on them.

And yet my body was still doing its thing, whether I wanted it to or not: tightening, bracing, going numb, panicking at the “wrong” moments, shutting down exactly when I most wanted to stay present. Insight alone wasn’t enough. And I couldn’t think or intellectualize my way out. 

In his groundbreaking book, The Body Keeps the Score, psychiatrist, Bessel van der Kolk, makes the case that trauma doesn’t only live in our memories or our thoughts. It lives in the body’s stress responses, long after the original danger has passed. So while I felt that I’d processed my trauma, I’d only done so ‘up top’ - that is, in my head. My body,  my incredible, wise, and intuitive body,  couldn’t be so easily altered. That shit sticks. It can look like your heart racing during a perfectly ordinary conversation, or going blank in conflict. It can feel like exhaustion after simple interactions. Chronic tension, gut issues, insomnia. Being jumpy, irritable, or emotionally flat for no obvious reason. 

And here’s why: 

Trauma can make your internal alarm system hypersensitive. It’s quicker to pull the fire alarm even when the “threat” is just a familiar tone of voice, or an old feeling that got wired in early. And the part of your brain that’s responsible for perspective and context? Under stress, it tends to go offline. That’s why you can intellectually know that you’re safe, but still feel unsafe. It’s why you can understand exactly what’s happening - and still not be able to stop it. Yes, knowledge can help. But the nervous system doesn’t update through understanding alone. 

This is where body-based therapy comes in. But let me be super clear, here:  I’m not talking about yoga or simply ‘shaking it out’. Body-based therapy doesn’t focus solely on the physical; what it does mean is that your body stops being a side character. We include it as part of the story, paying attention in real time to what your system is doing — tightening, speeding up, going numb, bracing, softening, settling, checking out — and getting curious together about what that might mean.

The model I work with is called NARM — the Neuroaffective Relational Model. NARM focuses on the complex trauma that we may have faced during childhood, and how those experiences shape our behaviors today, both mentally and physically. There is no touching during a NARM session. No instruction to “drop into your body.” No list of regulation exercises to perform correctly. Instead, a session might include what’s been happening in your life, what’s coming up emotionally, and gently noticing what your body does as you talk. Sometimes the most important moments are subtle:

Something in me tightens when I say that.

I notice I want to disappear right now.

I’m smiling, but I’m not okay.

These moments matter. We’re not excessively analyzing (or intellectualizing) them, but because they are a tangible and physical expression of what’s actually happening right now, in this body, in this room. And that’s where real change becomes possible.

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If chronic stress or trauma changed how your system responds to the world — and for many of us it did — then healing often means helping your nervous system have new experiences: of safety, of choice, of connection, of being able to stay present without bracing for impact.

Not just understanding that the past is over.

Actually feeling it.

As a NARM Master therapist, I know the power of addressing the mind and body. I know what it feels like to be where you are right now, and I know what it feels like to come out the other side. If you’re ready to not only understand your behaviors, but feel and transmute them into a healthier and more joyful way of being, a life with less fear and more clarity, drop me a line here.