How body-focused therapies support trauma recovery
Have you noticed how much we live in our heads? We’ve been taught to think our way out of problems, to believe our minds can solve everything. But when it comes to our healing - especially from trauma - this mind-only way of making sense of things can feel disconnected and even insufficient.
In his famous TED talk "Why Schools Kill Creativity," Sir Ken Robinson humorously observed how we treat our bodies merely as "a means of transport for our heads." Imagine if, instead, we listened to our whole selves - our bodies, our sensations, our feelings - just as much as we listen to and champion our minds.
The same idea is gaining ground in the world of trauma recovery, where body-focused therapies are showing us that our bodies aren’t just passive vessels - they are in fact the pathway to our healing.
Building a bridge between mind and body
For many of us, trauma creates a disconnect between the mind and body. This might feel like numbness, a sense of floating outside yourself, or persistent physical tension that never seems to go away. You might notice feeling out of tune with your body, perhaps even feeling unsafe or uncomfortable when you try to "drop back in" to it.
Body-focused therapies gently bridge this gap by helping us ever-so-gradually reconnect with our bodies. This isn’t about forcing ourselves to feel everything all at once - it’s about cultivating safety, little by little.
Over time, body-focused therapies guide us back into our physical selves - helping us feel more grounded, more connected, and more able to experience the present moment. This reconnection is an essential step in healing trauma, because trauma often leaves us feeling stuck in the past or hypervigilant about the future.
When we reconnect with our bodies, we create space to be in the here and now.
Releasing tension and stored emotions
Trauma doesn't just affect our minds; it leaves imprints on our bodies too. Many of us carry tension in our muscles without even realising it - tight shoulders, clenched jaws, knots in our stomachs. Over time, this chronic tension can lead to a host of physical and emotional issues. It’s like the body holding onto the story of what happened, even when our minds want to move on.
Body-focused therapies help us release this tension, gently unwinding the patterns and the muscle memories that have been stored in our bodies. It’s not always about a dramatic release - often it’s a quiet and gradual unravelling, creating just enough space for your body to breathe again. By allowing ourselves to notice and release these stored emotions, we give our bodies the cues of safety they need to move out of survival mode and back into a state of ease.
Empowerment through body awareness
One of the most powerful gifts of body-focused therapies is the cultivating of a deeper awareness and understanding of self. So much of trauma can feel out of our control, leaving us hypervigilant - ready to react to potential dangers, and feeling overwhelmed and disempowered. By tuning into the sensations of our bodies, we start to recognise the early signs of distress. We learn to listen to the whispers before they become shouts. We start to see what comes before the shift into a survival state.
This awareness is deeply empowering. It gives us tools to navigate difficult moments, to recognise when we’re starting to feel triggered, and to respond in a way that honours our needs. We learn to work with our bodies, developing the internal flexibility to respond to a range of experiences, without always finding ourselves in a full survival response.
Reconnecting communication between mind, body and heart
When trauma happens, it can create a split between our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations. Things don’t quite line up the way they used to. Our bodies might feel like they’re in one place while our minds are in another. Body-focused therapies help us bring these parts back together. They support the process of integration, supporting us to recognise the interconnectedness of our experiences.
This isn’t about "fixing" - it’s about recognising that all parts of us, mind, heart, and body, deserve a seat at the table. As we integrate our experiences, we begin to process trauma on multiple levels, creating a fuller, more complete path toward regeneration and wholeness.
Rather than trying to always be calm or regulated, we build flexibility in the nervous system, to oscillate in and out of different nervous system states, how to recognise and respond to activation, how to complete survival responses and how to return to a place of settledness and sustainable physiology.
We build our capacity to continue to recognise important signs of danger AND to recognise the signs of safety we can orient to in different situations (internally and within the environment around us).
And, through this, we bring more cohesion to our nervous systems and our internal experience of life.
If this resonates with you, know that you don’t have to navigate this alone.
There is so much power in learning to be with your body in a way that feels safe, supported, and gentle.
If you're feeling ready to explore this kind of work, I'm here. You’re not broken, and your journey towards regeneration - towards re-embodiment - can begin with the smallest, most tender steps.
