Your Body Isn't Broken: How Somatics Can Help You Recover from Sexual Trauma

Trauma doesn't just live in our memories. It lives in our bodies.

If you've experienced sexual trauma, whether as a child, in an abusive relationship, through assault, coercion, medical trauma, or any experience that left you feeling unsafe in your body, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Your mind may know you're safe.

Your body may not.

One of the greatest gifts engaging in regular somatic practices (like ecstatic dance, intuitive movement, trauma-informed yoga and breathwork) has given me is the understanding that my body was never working against me. It was protecting me.

The anxiety.
The numbness.
The hypervigilance.
The shutdown.
The inability to relax.
The tension that never seemed to leave.

These weren't signs that I was broken. It wasn't my body punishing me. These were signs that my body was still protecting me in teh only way it knew how to.

Our bodies are brilliant. When something overwhelming happens, especially during childhood, our nervous systems do whatever they must to keep us alive. Sometimes that means freezing. Sometimes it means leaving the body altogether. Sometimes it means storing experiences away until we're finally safe enough to process them.

Those patterns aren't failures.

They're adaptations.

And if your body learned those patterns, it can learn new ones.

One of the biggest misconceptions about healing is that if we simply understand our trauma intellectually, we'll be free. But, if tht were the case, everyone in psychotherapy would be healed within the first year or so.

Somatic healing helps us gently reconnect with the places we've abandoned inside ourselves. Instead of asking, "What's wrong with me?" we begin asking:

"What is my body trying to tell me?"

Four Gentle Somatic Practices You Can Begin Today

You don't need expensive equipment or hours of free time to start reconnecting with your body.

Here are a few practices that have profoundly supported my own healing.

1. Notice Before You Analyze

The next time you feel activated, resist the urge to immediately shut it down or explain it away.

Instead, pause and ask: Where do I feel this in my body? What does it feel like? What is it trying to tell me?

Simply noticing with open curiosity begins rebuilding trust between you and your body.

2. Shake It Out

Animals naturally shake after stressful experiences. Humans often suppress that instinct.

Try standing with your feet firmly planted and gently shaking your arms, legs, shoulders, and hips for one to three minutes. (It may feel silly. It may also feel incredibly freeing.)

3. Breathe Into Safety

When we're dysregulated, our breathing often becomes shallow without us realizing it.

Place one hand on your heart and one on your belly and slow your exhale until it's slightly longer than your inhale. You can try counting in for 4, out for 6. Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth.

You aren't forcing yourself to calm down. You're reminding your nervous system that this moment is different from the ones that hurt you.

4. Dance Without Performing

This is one of my favorite practices!

Close the door. Turn on music that makes you feel something. Music your body responds to.

Then move.

There is no choreography. No audience. No right way.

Just let your body express whatever words never could.

You Don't Have to Heal Alone

One thing I've learned over the years is that healing happens faster in safe community.

Our nervous systems were wounded in relationship. They also heal in relationship.

That doesn't mean someone else heals you. It means your body remembers what safety feels like through connection.

That's one of the reasons I created Ecstatic Life Academy.

Each week, we gather online for live nervous system regulation practices, embodiment experiences, ecstatic dance, and authentic connection with women who are learning to come home to themselves - without judgment, perfectionism, or shame.