Your Body Has Been Holding the Answer
What your nervous system has been trying to tell you — and how to finally start listening
Last week, we talked about the quiet drift — the slow erosion that happens when high-achieving women spend years living almost entirely for output. If you sat with the reflection prompts, something may have surfaced. A memory. A heaviness. A flicker of recognition. That surfacing? That was your body speaking. It always has been.
This week, we go inward. Not into the mind — there's plenty of analysis happening there already. We go into the body. Because here's what most high-performers are never taught: your nervous system has been keeping an honest record of everything your calendar refused to acknowledge.
"The body doesn't forget. It holds what the mind dismisses — every boundary crossed, every need unmet, every moment you pushed through when everything in you said pause."
Why the body matters
Your nervous system is not the enemy
When we talk about trauma recovery and somatic healing, we're not talking about drama or weakness. We're talking about biology. The autonomic nervous system — the part of you that regulates safety, threat, rest, and connection — responds to lived experience long before the rational mind has a chance to process it.
For high-functioning professionals, this often shows up as: shoulders that never fully drop. A jaw that tightens in certain conversations. A chest that feels vaguely compressed on Sunday evenings. A body that can't settle into rest even when the calendar finally clears.
These aren't quirks. They're communications. The body is pointing at something — and reclaiming yourself requires learning to read that language.
The clinical lens
What somatic awareness actually means
Somatic work isn't about lying on a mat and breathing. At its core, it's the practice of building a conscious, curious relationship with your body's signals — treating physical sensation as data rather than distraction or inconvenience.
When we've spent years in high-output mode, many of us have developed what I call a functional disconnect — we've trained ourselves to override physical cues in service of the next deadline, the next meeting, the next responsibility. We stop feeling hungry until we're ravenous. We stop feeling tired until we're depleted. We stop feeling our emotions until they arrive as physical symptoms.
"Reclaiming yourself is not a mindset shift. It's a body shift. It starts in the sensations you've learned to mute — and it asks you, gently, to turn the volume back up."
The good news? The body is extraordinarily patient. It will wait for you to return to it. And when you do — with gentleness, not force — it begins to release what it has been holding on your behalf.
This week's somatic practice — the body scan check-in
Find two undistracted minutes. Sit or lie down comfortably.
Close your eyes and take three slow, full breaths — exhale longer than you inhale.
Starting at the top of your head, slowly move your attention downward through your body.
Notice — without trying to fix — where you feel tension, tightness, numbness, or holding.
Place one hand on the area that calls your attention most. Simply rest it there and breathe.
Ask that part of your body: What have you been carrying? What do you need right now?
You don't need an answer. The asking is enough.
Do this once a day this week — morning, evening, or whenever you notice yourself pushing through. You're not fixing anything. You're making contact. That's where reclaiming begins.
This week's reflection prompts
Where in my body do I carry stress most consistently? What does it feel like?
When was the last time I slowed down enough to actually feel my body — not just use it?
What physical sensations do I tend to override or push through? Why?
If my body could speak one sentence to me right now, what would it say?
These questions aren't meant to be answered quickly. Let them move through your body, not just your mind. Notice what tightens. Notice what softens. The answers live in the sensation itself.
Dr. La'Toya Nicole Edwards, LCSW, BCD, Founder & Clinical Director, Emotional Strategist · Trauma Recovery Expert · Holistic Healer , thrivewellservices.comlatoyaedwardslcsw.com
