Healing our Ancestors’ Hidden Trauma

The Hidden Trauma in Your DNA

Have you ever felt emotions or body sensations that didn’t seem to belong to you? Surprisingly, science and somatic therapy suggest they might not. Instead, they could be echoes of your ancestors’ unspoken stories, living on through you.

In fact, recent research and somatic wisdom reveal that trauma doesn’t just stop with one generation. Instead, it ripples forward, shaping our nervous systems, behaviors, and even our DNA expression. In other words, the body is more than flesh and bone, it’s an archive of memory, storing what hasn’t yet been resolved.

How Ancestral Trauma Lives in the Body

Somatic pioneer Dr. Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing, shares a remarkable story from his family. When his mother was eight months pregnant with him, she nearly drowned in a New York lake. By sheer coincidence, Albert Einstein happened to be there and saved her life.

At first, this story may sound like just an extraordinary family tale. However, Dr. Levine later discovered that he carried the imprint of this near-death experience in his body. During somatic explorations, he felt waves of terror, helplessness, and survival shock that didn’t match his personal history. Eventually, he traced these sensations back to his mother’s brush with death in the womb.

Therefore, as Dr. Levine explains, “Our bodies can carry the unfinished stories of those who came before us. When we listen, we don’t just heal ourselves, we bring peace to our ancestors as well.”

 

The Science of Inherited Trauma from our Ancestors

Furthermore, modern science backs up these insights. Dr. Rachel Yehuda, a leading researcher at Mount Sinai, has shown that trauma can alter gene expression through epigenetics. For example, her studies found that children of Holocaust survivors had changes in their stress-regulating genes, which impacted cortisol levels and emotional resilience.

Moreover, other studies confirm this ripple effect:

  • Grandchildren of women pregnant during the siege of Hama in Syria showed altered genetic markers decades later.

  • Trauma during pregnancy can change serotonin transporters and immune cell function, thereby shaping the developing brain.

  • Childhood trauma leaves epigenetic marks that are linked to psychiatric, neurological, and immune issues later in life.

As a result, trauma doesn’t only shape your story, it can rewrite your biology, as well as that of your descendants.

A Sacred Responsibility

Consequently, healing ancestral trauma is not just self-work. Instead, it reverberates through time. As Grandmother Rita Pitka Blumenstein reminds us, “When we heal ourselves, we heal our ancestors. We heal our descendants.”

Therefore, this work requires compassion and pacing. Not all body memories are meant to be rushed into clarity. Indeed, some are lifelong companions, teaching us reverence for the lineage we carry.

 

Somatic Practice: Meeting Your Ancestors in the Body

Finally, here’s a simple practice to begin exploring ancestral stories in a safe, grounded way:

  1. Find Stillness – Sit or lie down somewhere quiet. Place one hand on your heart, one on your belly.

  2. Breathe with Intention – Inhale slowly, feeling your breath move into your belly. Exhale gently, releasing tension. Repeat for a few minutes.

  3. Invite the Lineage – Silently ask: “Is there a story my body is carrying from my ancestors?” Notice what arises: an image, sensation, emotion, or memory.

  4. Stay Curious, Not Forceful – Whatever comes, acknowledge it with compassion. You don’t need to analyze. Simply allow it to be seen and felt.

  5. Ground Yourself – When ready, place both feet firmly on the ground. Imagine roots extending into the earth. Take a deep breath and thank your body for what it shared.

This practice, therefore, opens a doorway, not just to personal healing, but to the collective integration of your family line. By remembering our ancestors and listening to the wisdom in our bodies, we can transform inherited trauma into resilience, connection, and even grace. In the end, your healing is never just yours, it’s a gift across generations.

✨ What message or resource do you feel your ancestors have handed down to you today?

If you would like to work one-on-one to support somatic intergenerational trauma integration, please feel free to click here.

To watch a brief video about this blog, click here.

To learn more about the transmission of intergenerational trauma through Dr. Yahuda’s work, click here!

Creating New Body Memories for Trauma Healing!

Have you ever flinched when someone touched your shoulder, or felt your chest tighten for no obvious reason? These reactions aren’t “all in your head”—they’re stored in your body. Known as body memories, these sensations are imprints left by unresolved trauma, encoded not in words, but in our tissues and nervous system responses.

Through somatic therapy, we can begin to rewrite traumatic memory—not by erasing the past, but by inviting the body into feeling, integrating and writing a new script for how we would like to live now.

What Are Body Memories?

Body memories are implicit, wordless experiences that live in the nervous system. You might notice them as:

  • A sudden freeze response during conflict

  • Startling easily at loud voices or unexpected touch

  • Persistent muscle tension or shallow breathing under stress

These are not flaws. They are survival strategies. Your body, doing its best to protect you, encoded trauma responses to help you avoid harm. The problem is that these protective patterns can get stuck, keeping you living a loop from the past, where the body still feels like the trauma is happening now.

Trauma Is Timeless—Until We Rewrite It

Unlike the mind, the nervous system has no sense of time. Without completing or healing thwarted fight, flight, or freeze (FFF) responses, trauma becomes “timeless.” That’s why something that happened years ago can still feel urgent, raw, and present, and we often reenact these unintegrated memories in our present in an unconscious attempt to heal them.

As trauma expert Peter Levine says:

“Conscious, explicit memory is only the tip of a deep iceberg… The submerged strata of implicit experience (or unconscious) move and motivate us in ways the conscious mind can only imagine.”

This is why talk therapy, while powerful, may not always be enough. The body remembers, even when the mind has moved on.

How Trauma Gets Stored in the Body

During a traumatic event, stress hormones flood the brain, disrupting the hippocampus (which organizes explicit memory) and ramping up the amygdala (which governs emotional memory). The result? Instead of a coherent narrative, we’re left with sensory fragments—sounds, smells, body sensations—frozen in time.

Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk explains:

“Traumatic experiences create powerful, isolated sensory fragments… fixed and static… carved into the brain, body, and psyche.”

These imprints don’t update easily. Without somatic or other related mind-body based therapies, they can continue to drive physical and emotional symptoms for years.

Rewriting Memory with Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy reconnects you with the language of your body—sensation, breath, movement, and our felt or “gut sense”. It creates a bridge between the past and the present, helping you:

  • Recognize your body’s trauma signals without judgment

  • Invite in new bodily sensations

  • Re-pattern your nervous system over time

This isn’t about reliving trauma. It’s about rediscovering what safety feels like. Feeling into the body and reimagining new possibilities of our felt sense, images or movements, and embodying them, can create small shifts that repeated over time begin to rewire your body’s sense of safety. For example, relaxing your shoulders by 1%, taking one deep breath every hour, placing your hand over your heart when feeling overwhelmed, naming one sensation that feels good and anchoring it with a breath or gesture.

These shifts additionally support vagus nerve tone, aid in nervous system regulation, and help your body to update its story.

Your Body is Ready to Heal

Your body is not broken—it’s communicating about past experiences that are looking for healing now. Somatic therapy doesn’t bypass the mind; however, it does invite the body into the conversation. Rewriting traumatic memory is the process of reclaiming your body’s capacity for safety, joy, and connection, one sensation, breath, or completed impulse, at a time.

Ready to see what’s possible when you support new body memories to take root and guide life?

Join our Monthly Somatic Integrations, where we practice the rewiring of what our body knows into the potentials of what it yearns to be.

To explore this theme more in a brief video, plus a related somatic exercise, please click here!

Check out my guided meditation entitled, “Doorway to Embodied Love,” whose binaural beats supports increased memory, heightened awareness and mood stabilization by clicking here.

Why Integrating Stuckness (Fight/Flight/Freeze) Matters!

Have you ever felt like your body is running the show, even when your mind knows you’re safe? That’s because trauma doesn’t only live in your memories, it also lives in your nervous system. When the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) gets stuck in survival mode, life can feel overwhelming, exhausting, or numb. Whether you’re “stuck on” in constant hyperarousal (fight/flight), or “stuck off” in hypoarousal (freeze), your body struggles to return to its natural rhythm of safety and rest.

Understanding Stuck States in the Nervous System

Your ANS works 24/7 to scan your environment and decide how safe or unsafe it is. Depending on its reading, your body shifts between three primary states:

  1. Parasympathetic (Safety) – the “rest and digest” state where you feel calm, present, and connected.

  2. Sympathetic (Fight/Flight) – a state of hyperarousal that prepares you to face danger.

  3. Dorsal Vagal Freeze (Life Threat) – a shutdown state of collapse, numbness, or dissociation.

These states are meant to protect you. The challenge is when past trauma, whether childhood adversity, acute trauma, or long-term stress, locks your system into these heightened states, even when there’s no danger in the present.

When You’re Stuck “On” (Fight/Flight)

  • Racing thoughts, irritability, and hypervigilance

  • Trouble sleeping or resting

  • Poor digestion

  • Difficulty pausing before reacting emotionally

When You’re Stuck “Off” (Freeze)

  • Feeling emotionally flat or disconnected

  • Struggling to maintain close relationships

  • Low energy or chronic fatigue

  • Poor digestion and sleep

  • A sense of being collapsed or invisible

Neither state is wrong, they were once protective. But when we live there long-term, they keep us from fully engaging with life.

How Trauma Healing Unlocks Flow

To heal, the body needs more than just intellectual understanding. We must build the capacity to feel into and track uncomfortable sensations connected to fight, flight, or freeze. By staying present with these sensations and expressing the emotions linked to them, we help discharge the “bound survival energy” that keeps us stuck.

As this happens, something remarkable unfolds:

  • Your posture naturally opens and aligns.

  • Facial muscles and nerves relax.

  • Gut instincts become clearer and more trustworthy.

  • Choices begin to feel life-enhancing instead of fear-driven.

This process is not about reliving trauma, but about integrating it through the body so that the nervous system can return to balance.

Building Internal Safety and Resources

The foundation of healing is safety, or at least enough safety to explore what once felt overwhelming. Stuckness in the nervous system reflects how unsafe we once felt, often during developmental years. But healing means we can strengthen our inner resources now, at any age.

Through somatic practices like breathwork, gentle movement, and interoceptive awareness, we begin to feel into our bodies again. Over time, this shifts the nervous system out of survival mode and into regulation, creating space for vitality, connection, and joy.

A Reflection for You

Pause for a moment. When stress or conflict arises, which state do you tend to fall into?

  • Hyperarousal (Fight/Flight)?

  • Hypoarousal (Freeze)?

Recognizing your patterns is the first step toward healing them. From here, you can gently cultivate the capacity to feel into your body, shift stuck patterns, and thrive in all areas of your life.

Ready to Restore Your Flow?

If you’re ready to reconnect with your body and bring your nervous system back into balance, join me inside The Collective, my monthly Somatic Teachings membership where we practice tools that support healing, resilience, and flow.

Learn more and join The Collective here

Feel free to click here for a brief video on how to know if you are a Fight/Flight or Freezer and what to do!

Also, check out this previous blog on FFF + Fawn to learn more about what these 4 states physically look and feel like by clicking here.

How Interoception Can Rewire Your Nervous System

If you close your eyes, and sense into your gut and how it communicates to your brain via the biggest nerve in your body, the Parasympathetic Vagus nerve, what do you notice? Subtle sensations, a gentle aliveness circulating around the body, emotions surfacing, or nothing at all? In the early 1990s, Dr. Stephen Porges, founder of the Polyvagal Theory, coined interoception, our gut feedback, “as our sixth sense that allows us to become aware of our instinctual responses to our environment.”

What is Interoception?

Interoception is the physical, psychological, and social development in our bodies that allows us to sense stimulus from within our viscera, communicating our gut sense of safety, protection, good and bad stressors, and also elicits empathy. It is a feedback loop from our guts that calms our limbic brains, and can also get stuck on “on” or “off” due to trauma.

When we have a healthy Nervous System and good attunement with ourselves, others and the environment, we sense when something is off before it gets bad, e.g. we feel tired, drained, sluggish, hungry, or where we are in our cycle as women. This felt sense develops or struggles to develop within us based on how we were attuned to as young children. If we learn to ignore these signals at a young age, this eventually leads to disconnect, overwhelm and sickness as adults.

How does Interoception Develop?

When we are babies we know how to rest and digest, sense fear, hunger, know if something isn’t right, or if touch by our caregivers is kind or not. It is the job of our caregivers to attune to us and meet physiological needs, which is why babies cry: they are in physiological distress. When the baby gets fed or diapers changed, they experience co-regulation, e.g. warmth with a caregiver, eye contact, down-regulation, and soothing. This attunement helps to build Nervous System regulation, secure attachment and good experiences with our guts over time.

When babies don’t get fed when hungry, for example, while sleep training, their stomachs cramp, hurt, they cry loudly, and eventually collapse into the freeze response. If they repeatedly experience intense distress without adequate co-regulation, this sets up confused or numbed out interoception, e.g. a poor, negative experience of their insides. Many parents from previous generations also didn’t receive co-regulation, were trained not to listen to their guts and to override their paternal instincts, e.g. doctor’s told them to let babies cry to self-soothe.

How do we Repair Interoception?

To restore damage done from dysregulated interoception, we need to relearn how to feel our guts and ourselves accurately again, so that we can remember how to feel, and feel safe in our bodies. This helps us to fear our internal experiences less, regain self-compassion, regulate our attention and co-regulate with others more easily. Practicing interoceptive exercises and tuning into our gut sense within our real lives, also helps us to regain accurate gut feedback, e.g. feeling, sensing, orienting in the world.

 

What is Neuroception?

Building our capacity to feel our inner world also contributes to our brains’ ability to accurately discern and signal safety or danger from our environments or other people, which is called Neuroception. If this function is faulty, the subconscious parts of our brain will overfire to make us feel that we are in danger when we are safe, and underfire to make us feel that we are safe when we are in danger. This capacity or lack of it, is also often influenced by a history of adversity and requires support to strengthen interoception so that we can choose healthy relationships and environments to thrive in.

Strengthening Interoception and Neuroception for Resilience

Check in with yourself after reading this blog and honestly ask yourself, can you rely on the info that your gut sends to your brain when you have an important decision to make or problem to solve? If this feels like an ongoing struggle, please join us for monthly Somatic Integrations and/or the 12 month Grace & Somatics: Collective Program to receive personal and community support to reconnect! Click here for more info.

Enjoy these 2 quick exercises to strengthen healthy interoception here.

Click here to find out how to learn the difference between your gut feedback and intuition!

The Science of Inspiration: How Breath Heals Trauma

The Latin word Inspiritus means “to breathe,” but it also contains “spirit.” To inspire is literally to breathe in Spirit, to be filled with life, vitality, and even the divine. It is also the root of “inspiration,” meaning to be touched by the muses, by creativity, by something larger than ourselves. But when we’ve experienced chronic stress, trauma, or developmental overwhelm, our inspiration often disappears into the background. The natural rhythm of breath, that effortless rise and fall, can become dysregulated alongside the nervous system. Instead of flowing, breath becomes controlled: shallow, held, forced, or restricted.

This is not weakness; it’s survival. Breath is deeply tied to the autonomic nervous system. Under threat, our body activates ancient survival pathways. The vagus nerve, fight-or-flight responses, and patterns of freeze or collapse shape how we breathe.

For instance:

  • Shallow, rapid breathing signals sympathetic arousal (fight/flight).

  • Held or absent breath often reflects freeze or shutdown.

  • Overly controlled deep breaths can be a way of suppressing rather than integrating trauma.

 

Why “Just Taking Deep Breaths” Isn’t Enough

Many of us are taught to override discomfort with deep breaths: to force calm. But neuroscience and somatic psychology suggest this misses the deeper invitation. When we breathe over an old traumatic memory, the body doesn’t complete its survival response. Instead, the unfinished patterns remain stored, resurfacing as anxiety, chronic pain, or inflammation.

What if, instead, we let the breath guide us?

This doesn’t mean collapsing into chaos, but noticing:

  • How the breath wants to move.

  • Where sensations arise in the body.

  • Whether impulses ~ a shake, a stretch, a push ~ want completion.

Allowing breath to move naturally often creates a spontaneous release, an exhale that feels different, an emotional wave, or an involuntary shift in posture. These are signs of integration, the nervous system resetting itself, finding coherence.

The Science of Breath and Nervous System Coherence

Research in psychophysiology shows that breathing modulates key systems of the body:

  • Heart rate variability (HRV): a marker of resilience and adaptability.

  • Vascular rhythm and blood pressure: linked to parasympathetic balance.

  • Muscle tone: shaped by vagal regulation and trauma states.

When trauma remains unresolved, these systems lose coherence. Breath becomes fragmented, rhythms fall out of sync, and the body’s innate self-regulation is disrupted. But as we allow the breath to find its natural flow, coherence returns. Body and mind self-organize. Spirit, inspiration, reenters.

An Invitation

Take a moment now:

  • Sense the rhythm of your breath.

  • Notice how it moves through your chest, belly, back, even your skin.

  • Ask: Does my breath inspire me to take in life? Or does it protect me from it?

Breath reveals both vulnerability and power. By attuning to it, we reconnect not only to physiology but also to Spirit, the felt sense of being part of something greater.

Breathing in this way is not just about oxygen. It is about reawakening inspiration: to create, to connect, and to live fully alive.

If you feel your breath is shaped by old trauma or overwhelm, you don’t have to navigate this alone. Somatic therapies like Somatic Experiencing help restore nervous system coherence so you can breathe, and live, more freely.

✨ Ready to reconnect with your inspiration? Book a session with Jaya  

If you would like to learn more about the Fight/Flight/Freeze and Fawn response and how to integrate it to free up your breath more, click here!

3 Timeless keys for Happiness from Ayurveda & Somatics!

Ancient Ayurveda Meets Somatic Healing

I am currently in the midst of a 3-week Panchakarma cleanse in South India, a traditional Ayurvedic detox that includes diet, herbal medicines, rituals (Pujas), and daily body treatments. The Centre is breathtaking, surrounded by mountains and palm trees, carrying an auspicious energy that feels deeply healing on every level. These are the moments and places that support us to connect within, to our own source of happiness, while taking care of ourselves on every level.

The other evening, the Ayurvedic doctor gave a talk on the 3 principles for a happy life. According to Ayurveda, true well-being comes from living in harmony with:

  1. Our Soul

  2. The Five Elements of Nature

  3. Divinity

This 5,000-year-old wisdom resonated strongly with me, not only because of its timelessness but also because of its beautiful overlap with modern somatic therapy.

✨ Ayurveda and Somatic Healing: A Shared Path to Happiness

As I reflected on the doctor’s words, I saw clear parallels with the body-based trauma healing practices I use in my work:

1. Reconnecting with the Soul

Ayurveda teaches that when we are aligned with our soul, life flows with ease. Somatic therapies echo this by helping us reunite the fragmented parts of our psyche that split during trauma. By gently working with the body, people can reconnect to their essence—their soul—and feel whole again.

2. Returning to Nature’s Rhythm

Just as Ayurveda emphasizes balance with the five elements, somatic work supports the nervous system in returning to its natural state. Trauma often pushes the body into chronic fight, flight, or freeze. Somatic practices help release stuck energy and guide us back to regulation, where the body can rest, digest, and heal.

3. Rediscovering Divinity and Meaning

Ayurveda sees happiness as rooted in relationship with the Divine. In somatic healing, we often help people reconnect with spirituality or meaning beyond trauma. This can be a sense of inner peace, a relationship to something larger than oneself, or even an embodied connection with life’s sacredness.

Ancient Wisdom, Modern Healing

What strikes me most is how universal these principles of health and happiness are. Whether we are learning from Ayurveda or somatic therapies, both remind us that healing is about reconnection: to soul, to nature, and to spirit.

And perhaps this is the invitation for all of us: to keep returning to these connections, so we can live from a place of balance, joy, and resilience.

Ready to Reconnect with your own Deep Happiness?

If you’re longing to feel more at home in your body and more connected to your soul, I invite you to explore Somatic Trauma Integration. You can:

Your body is your greatest home, and with the right tools, it can become a place of vitality, safety, and deep happiness.

To support your journey inwards, enjoy one of my guided meditations entitled, “Returning to the Light”, by clicking here.

To read another blog on listening to your gut re: healing, and returning to happiness, check out this blog by clicking here!

Transform Relationships with Nervous System Awareness

I’m so excited to share this beautiful and practical interview with Natalie Eskenazy ( on IG @theheartsway.ca). In this conversation, we explore how understanding the nervous system can completely transform the way we show up in relationships.

You’ll learn why your nervous system health is the foundation for deeper connection, and how building the capacity to “read” both your own state and the state of your loved ones can bring more ease, safety, and joy into daily life.

Natalie offers grounded insights and actionable tips on how to gently orient to your partner, children, and close friends so that everyone feels more supported, seen, and connected. These tools not only help reduce conflict and miscommunication but also open the door to greater intimacy, resilience, and long-lasting harmony.

Whether you’re navigating family life, a romantic partnership, or deep friendships, this conversation will give you a fresh perspective on how nervous system awareness can help all of your relationships thrive.

Ps. My video picture quality was not great in Bali but the interview was!

Podcast: Somatic Healing as a Path to Grace

🌿 Somatic Healing as a Portal to Grace: My Interview on Our Awakening Journey Podcast

I recently had the honor of being featured on the inspiring new podcast Our Awakening Journey with radiant lightworker and somatic therapist Mylène Piché, founder of École d’éveil multidimensionnel.

This conversation was a beautiful opportunity to share about somatic work, the integration of trauma, and how these practices can serve as a profound portal into Grace and Spiritual awakening.

In our discussion, I opened up about my own life’s journey—how somatic trauma integration not only helped me heal from old wounds but also deepened my connection to Spirit, resilience, and the mystery of life itself. Over the years, I’ve witnessed countless others experience similar openings: moments where pain and trauma, when lovingly integrated, become gateways to inner peace, meaning, and divine connection.

✨ If you’ve ever wondered how healing the body can also transform the soul, this episode will uplift and inspire you.

Please enjoy this thought-provoking and heart-opening conversation on Our Awakening Journey:


👉 Listen to the episode on Spotify here

 
You can also find it on Apple Podcasts & iHeartRadio 

Are You Stuck in Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn?

Your Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is a remarkable network that runs behind the scenes of daily life. It governs the functions we don’t consciously control, like breathing, digestion, circulation, hormone release, and immune responses. Within it are different branches that determine how we respond to the world around us, whether through calm connection, mobilization, shutdown, or appeasement.

When we understand how the ANS works, we begin to see that many of our emotional, physical, and relational challenges are not flaws or failures. They are simply our body’s best attempts to keep us safe.

The Branches of the ANS

1. Ventral Vagal (VV) – Safety, Connection & Social Engagement

The ventral vagal branch of the parasympathetic nervous system is active when we feel safe, grounded, and connected. It helps regulate our heart rate, lungs, digestion, voice, and even the muscles in our face and middle ear.

When this system is online:

  • Our face is open, warm, and expressive.

  • Our voice has melody, depth, and flow.

  • We feel grounded in our body and open to others.

  • We are curious, playful, and creative.

This is our natural “rest and connect” state. It’s also the state that supports healing, repair, and resilience.

2. Sympathetic – Fight or Flight

When social engagement doesn’t work—when we sense danger—the body turns up the dial through the sympathetic nervous system. This prepares us for action:

  • Fight: Anger, irritability, jaw clenching, fists tightening, narrowed eyes, or urges to lash out. Breath becomes shallow or held. Cortisol and adrenaline flood the system.

  • Flight: Anxiety, urgency, restlessness, fidgeting, trembling, or feeling like you “just need to get out.” Breathing is quick and shallow, legs and arms feel charged to move.

Sympathetic activation isn’t bad—it helps us survive danger. But when it’s chronic, it can erode our health, leaving us stuck in hyperarousal.

3. Dorsal Vagal (DV) – Freeze & Collapse

If fight or flight doesn’t resolve the threat, the body may move into freeze or shutdown through the dorsal vagal branch. This is an ancient survival response designed to conserve energy and “play dead” until the danger passes.

Signs of dorsal vagal shutdown include:

  • Numbness, collapse, exhaustion, or paralysis.

  • Shallow breathing, low oxygen, pallid complexion.

  • Dissociation, fogginess, or feeling “not here.”

  • Muscles become heavy, limp, or without tone.

At one end, the dorsal vagal system supports rest and digest. At the other, it protects through immobilization.

4. The Fawn Response – Appease to Survive

In addition to fight, flight, and freeze, trauma experts have identified a fourth survival response: fawn.

The fawn response arises when neither fighting, fleeing, nor freezing feel safe or effective. Instead, the body learns to survive by appeasing, placating, or over-accommodating others in order to avoid conflict with them or harm from them.

Signs of fawning may include:

  • Difficulty saying no or setting boundaries.

  • Automatically agreeing to keep peace, even at personal cost.

  • Hyper-attunement to others’ needs while ignoring your own.

  • Feeling safe only when pleasing or being accepted.

Though often overlooked, fawning is common—especially in those who grew up with unpredictable caregivers or environments where their safety depended on keeping others happy.

Health & the Nervous System

All of our body’s focus ultimately comes back to survival. When the ANS is chronically stuck in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, the body has less capacity to repair itself. Systems like digestion, immunity, and cardiovascular function are put on hold. Over time, this contributes to inflammation, autoimmunity, pain syndromes, and even neurodegenerative conditions.

Research, including the work of Dr. Gabor Maté, shows that high levels of early stress and trauma (measured by ACE scores—Adverse Childhood Experiences) correlate strongly with later physical and mental health challenges.

As you read this, notice your own body:

  • Do you feel warmth, openness, and ease (ventral vagal)?

  • Are you restless, tense, or activated (sympathetic)?

  • Do you feel foggy, numb, or heavy (dorsal vagal)?

  • Do you notice a pull to “manage” or appease (fawn)?

Simply observing is the first step toward regulation.

If you feel tight or constricted, try softening your gaze or looking at something pleasant in your environment. If you feel frozen or numb, gently move your eyes, shoulders, or spine. If you notice fawning, pause and ask: “What do I need right now?”

These small acts invite your system back toward balance: towards the ventral vagal state of safety and connection.

✨ Welcome to your Autonomic Nervous System!
By understanding its language, we learn to work with it, rather than against it, and open the door to healing, resilience, and freedom.

Ready to explore your nervous system more deeply, and support clients, family and friends with theirs? Join us for the 6 week Grace & Somatics: Trauma-Informed Life Training by clicking here!

To read more about why integrating our “stuckness” matter, please click my related blog here.

Is Somatic Experiencing Evidence Based?

Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body–mind approach to healing trauma that focuses on helping people reconnect with and befriend their bodies. Instead of asking clients to re-tell or relive painful memories, SE uses the body as the gateway to healing, guiding individuals toward safety, regulation, and resilience.

In SE, clients are guided to notice and gently explore their bodily experiences, which fall into three main categories:

  • Interoceptive – internal sensations (such as heartbeat, breath, gut feelings)

  • Proprioceptive – awareness of where the body is in space

  • Kinesthetic – awareness of movement, both big and small

By working with these subtle sensations, SE helps people gradually shift from states of overwhelm or shutdown into balance and regulation, without forcing them to confront traumatic memories head-on.

How Does our Body get Stuck with Trauma?

Unlike stress, which is the body’s temporary response to challenge, trauma develops when the nervous system is unable to return to a state of regulation. As Dr. Peter Levine, the founder of SE, explains: trauma isn’t defined by the event itself, but by how our nervous system responds to it.

That’s why two people may experience the same situation but walk away with very different outcomes, one regulated, one traumatized. Developmental history, early attachment, social support, and biological sensitivity all shape how we experience and integrate overwhelming events.

The autonomic nervous system (ANS)—which includes the sympathetic (fight/flight) and parasympathetic (rest/digest, freeze) branches, can sometimes respond paradoxically, activating both systems at once and creating dysregulation. SE works directly with these patterns, allowing the nervous system to “renegotiate” trauma by safely releasing the bound survival energy that got stuck in the body during moments of overwhelm.

How Somatic Experiencing Works

Through gentle awareness practices, guided exploration, and sometimes touch (always with consent), SE helps people:

  • Discharge incomplete fight/flight responses

  • Come out of freeze states and reconnect with vitality

  • Regain a sense of safety in their body

  • Build resilience and regulation in daily life

Over time, this restores the body’s natural rhythm and helps both mind and body return to a state of balance.

The Science Behind Somatic Experiencing

Research has increasingly demonstrated the effectiveness of SE:

  • Brom et al. (2017) – After 15 weekly SE sessions, participants reported significant decreases in PTSD symptoms and depression.

  • Andersen et al. (2017) – In a study of PTSD and chronic pain, SE combined with treatment-as-usual led to significant reductions in PTSD symptoms and fear of movement compared to treatment-as-usual alone.

  • Natural disaster survivor studies – SE interventions have shown lasting benefits, with participants reporting less arousal, intrusion, and avoidance. Eight months later, 90% noted significant improvement or were symptom-free.

These findings show that SE is not only powerful in reducing trauma symptoms, but also effective in supporting resilience and recovery across diverse populations.

Trauma can make us feel disconnected from ourselves, from others, and from life. SE offers a gentle yet profound path back to wholeness, helping the body resolve what was once overwhelming and return to a state of safety and vitality.

By learning to listen to the body and trust its wisdom, healing becomes possible: one sensation, one breath, one moment of safety at a time.

To learn more about integrating stuck fight, flight, and freeze states in your body, please click here!