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Four years after a breakup that left me feeling like a shell of myself, I stumbled into something I didn't yet have a word for.
I was lost. Angry. Completely out of rhythm with myself, with no idea where to put all that energy. So I did what felt instinctive. I self-isolated for a while. Not in a giving-up way. In a I need to be very quiet & very still kind of way.
I started working out consistently (honestly, I still owe that breakup for the routine I swear by to this day). I meditated. I got into breathwork. I journaled more, & this is the journal I kept coming back to. I still use it. I took longer walks. I spent a lot of time alone.
Months passed. The anger softened. The fog began to lift. I had new tools, a quieter nervous system, & a version of myself I actually recognized again.
It wasn't until years later that I found the language for what I'd been doing all along. Somatic healing.
So what actually is somatic healing? Listen, at its simplest it's the practice of slowing down long enough to really hear what your body is trying to tell you. Because your body is not working against you. It never has been. It's been sending signals the whole time. The tension in your shoulders. The tightness in your chest. That weird, low-grade off feeling you can't quite name. Your body is trying to get your attention, & somatic healing is just how you learn to listen.
It's getting back into rhythm with a system that's gone quiet, or gone into overdrive, because life got heavy & you stopped having time to check in with yourself. It is not a wellness trend. It's not complicated. It doesn't require a therapist's office, a yoga retreat, or a perfectly curated morning routine. (Thank god, because I don't have one of those either.)
It just requires you to slow down enough to hear yourself. Does that make sense?
If you want to go deeper into how the body stores stress & why it matters, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk is the book that changed everything for me. It's dense but worth every page.
Here's what I wish someone had said to me four years ago, when I was slumped in my room with no idea what was happening to me. Your nervous system is keeping score. Every stressful season. Every relationship that cost you something. Every time you pushed through when you should have rested. Your body absorbed all of it. It stored it. & at some point, when the load gets too heavy, it starts to speak up.
That chronic tension. The exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix. The anxiety living just beneath the surface. The feeling of being disconnected from yourself, like you're going through the motions but you're not actually there.
That's your body asking to be heard. Somatic healing is just the practice of answering.
& this is the part that gets me every time. So many of the women I talk to are already doing somatic work. They just don't have the language for it yet. The walk you take when you're overwhelmed. The way you need to move your body after a hard conversation. The journaling that helps you process what your brain can't quite organize. The deep breath you take before you respond.
That's it. That's the practice. You've been doing this intuitively your whole life. Drop into You just gives you the tools to do it more intentionally.
One small thing that helps me drop in faster, especially on the days when my brain won't slow down, is this weighted silk eye pillow. Something about the gentle pressure tells my nervous system it's safe to soften. I use it during breathwork, meditations, or honestly just when I need five minutes of darkness & quiet.
I'm not writing any of this from the other side of healing, by the way. I'm still in it. I have days where I feel like I've barely started, & days where I look around & realize I've actually come further than I thought. That's the messy middle. & I really think that's where this work lives. Not on some shiny finish line, but in the very ordinary mornings where you choose to breathe before you check your phone. The very ordinary nights where you put your hand on your chest before you fall asleep & feel yourself there.
If you're reading this & you feel lost. Angry. Disconnected. Like a version of yourself you don't fully recognize. I want you to know I'm sending you the biggest hug.
Dark days don't last forever. Things may feel confusing & heavy right now, but the skies will clear. You will land back on your feet. You don't need to figure out the distant future. You just need to focus on one day at a time & keep showing up in the small ways that shift the needle.
Eventually so many of those days will add up, & you'll look back & think I'm so glad I kept going. Focus on the things that bring you back to yourself. Even the little ones. Especially the little ones. Those are the ones that bring you home.
If you've been waiting to find your way back to yourself, Remembrance is a free place to start. & The Soft Landing is a 7-day return built for the woman who is ready to stop playing small & feel good in her body again.
Your body has been talking to you. It's not too late to listen.
Stay close,
Jess