Episode 105: When Your Body Speaks: Learning to Heal Before It Breaks

What if your body has been trying to talk to you this whole time? That chronic pain, exhaustion, or unexplained illness—it’s not random. It’s your body holding onto stress, emotions, and unprocessed experiences that were never given space to move through. And if we don’t listen? The body will find a way to make us.

In today’s episode, we’re diving into the ways stress and emotions show up physically, why women are more likely to take on emotional burdens in the body, and how you can start tuning in before burnout, illness, or breakdown forces you to stop. I’ll also share the wake-up call that made me finally pay attention to my own body’s signals—after years of ignoring them.

You’ll Learn:
💡 How emotions get stored in the body and show up as chronic pain, fatigue, or illness
💡 Why women are more likely to carry stress physically (and how to start releasing it)
💡 The signs your body is screaming for your attention—before it reaches a breaking point
💡 Simple somatic practices you can start today to reconnect with your body and heal from the inside out

Ready to go deeper?
If this episode resonates, don’t wait for your body to force you to listen. Join me for my upcoming retreat—a transformational weekend designed to help you reset your nervous system, release stored stress, and come home to yourself. Or, if you’re ready for personalized support, let’s work together 1:1. Learn more here.

Resources & Links:
✨ Join the Retreat – Step away from the chaos and into deep healing.
✨ Work With Me 1:1 – Personalized support for nervous system healing & emotional wellness.
✨ Follow Me on Instagram – Daily insights & tools for emotional and nervous system regulation.

If this episode spoke to you, let me know! Screenshot it, share it on Instagram, and tag me @ParentingTherapistPam so I can cheer you on in your healing journey. And if you love the show, leaving a review helps more women find this work. 💛

The best thing you can do for yourself and your kids is effectively regulate your nervous system. And a great place to start >> to wire the brain for gratitude. Research tells us that gratitude increases happiness and a peaceful mindset. Make the shift and watch how things in your life start to change. Sign up today! www.pamgodbois.com/gratitude

Transcript

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Have you ever had a gut feeling about something, but ignored it or felt tension in your shoulders so tight. It felt like you're carrying the weight of the world. What if I told you you kind of are the stress, the emotions, the unprocessed struggles, they don't just disappear. They stay in your body, in your muscles, your digestion, your nervous system, and over time, they turn into chronic pain, exhaustion, and even illness. For years, I worked in mental health, helping people process their emotions, but no one ever taught me that emotions live in the body. This was a lesson I learned the hard way, first in my yoga teacher training, then through my own health struggles. And later by watching women's lives transform when they finally stopped ignoring what their bodies were trying to tell them. So if you've been numbing out, whether with food, alcohol, scrolling, or just pushing through, I need you to hear this. Your body remembers everything. And in today's episode, we're going to talk about how to start listening before it starts screaming at you. Hey there. And welcome back to the peaceful home podcast. My name is Pam and I am your host. And after being in the field of mental health for 14 years, I decided I wanted to learn more about the body. So I enrolled in a 200 hour yoga teacher training in Boston. And honestly, this was the first time I ever heard someone say that when the mind struggles, it shows up in the body. I had a teacher who used to say that dis ease of the mind creates disease in the body. And that stuck with me, but the really crazy thing, as these conversations kept unfolding over the six months of my training, I realized that none of this was talked about in my graduate classes for social work. There was no mention of how stress and trauma show up in the body. No discussion of how emotions when unprocessed don't just disappear. They take up space in our tissue, our nervous system, our immune function. It was only through the world of yoga that these concepts were, for me, it was only through the world of yoga that these concepts were even addressed. I was on the cusp of this major shift in research on the mind body connection. And all I knew at the time was that I felt annoyed and suspicious, like something was going on and I just couldn't see it. Because I had spent most of my adolescence in pain. Pain I chalked up to my choice of sport. But now, in retrospect, I realize that wasn't the root of it. It was just the most plausible excuse. And here's something I wish I'd known sooner. Women are far more likely than men to take on emotional stress physically. Studies show that we carry more of the mental and emotional load, and it doesn't just weigh on our minds. It shows up in our bodies, chronic pain, auto immune issues, migraines, fatigue. So many of the struggles that women deal with daily can be traced back to stress and emotions that were never processed. They're just stored. So maybe you're a woman who has been experiencing unexplained pain, exhaustion, or chronic illness, and wondering why does my body feel like this? You're not imagining it. Your body remembers everything your mind tries to forget. And today We're going to talk about how to start listening to it. We like to think that emotions come and go and they pass through us like waves. But the truth is when we don't allow them to move through, they don't just disappear. They get stored in our muscles, in our gut. And our nervous system. And over time, that storage turns into chronic tension, pain, and even disease. Think about a time when you were deeply stressed. Maybe you were going through a breakup, dealing with a toxic job, or navigating a big loss. Did you notice your shoulders creeping up towards your ears? That pit in your stomach? The tightness in your jaw? That wasn't just in your head. It was your body holding onto what you couldn't process in the moment. And if you've ever had pain or tension that just won't go away, no matter how much stretching, massage or Advil you throw at it, there's a good chance your body is holding onto something deeper. Dr. Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score has spent decades researching how trauma and chronic stress impact the body. His research shows that unprocessed emotions literally rewire the nervous system. When we experience something overwhelming, whether it's childhood neglect, a bad breakup or years of people pleasing, our nervous system doesn't just get over it. It adapts. For some people, that adaptation looks like hypervigilance, constantly being on edge, always waiting for the next shoe to drop. For others, it looks like shutting down, feeling numb, exhausted, and disconnected. Over time, this state of fight, flight, or freeze, it beds itself into the body. Muscles stay tense. The digestive system stays inflamed. The immune system weakens because the body is still responding as if the stressor is happening, even if it's long gone. Van der Kolk's work shows that people with unresolved trauma often struggle with things like chronic pain, especially in the neck, shoulders, and back. Gut issues like IBS or stomach pain. Autoimmune conditions, where the body literally starts attacking itself. Migraines, tension headaches, jaw clenching, and chronic fatigue because staying in survival mode is exhausting. The body doesn't forget what the mind tries to push away. This is where the work of Dr. Peter Levine comes in. He developed somatic experiencing, a trauma healing approach that focuses on how the body holds on how the body holds stress. And more importantly, how to release it. Levine studied animals in the wild and noticed that after a life threatening event, like being chased by a predator, they would go into a full body tremble or shake once they were safe. That shaking is their nervous system's way of discharging the excess energy from the survival response. And then, they move on. They don't carry the trauma for the rest of their lives. But humans, we don't do that. Instead of letting our bodies release stress naturally, we suppress it. We hold in tears. We tighten our jaw. We tell ourselves to get over it and move on. And that energy? It doesn't go away. It stays locked in the body. That's why body based healing is so important. Things like shaking, moving, breathwork, and even crying are ways that we can release what's stuck. Have you ever had a deep cry and then felt physically lighter after? That's not in your head. That's your nervous system finally letting go of what it's been holding on to. Dr. Dan Siegel's research reinforces this. He studies the way emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations are all part of one interconnected system. What happens in the mind affects the body and what happens in the body affects the mind. We can't separate the two. This is why when we're anxious, we feel it in our chest. When we're heartbroken, we feel it in our gut. When we're overwhelmed, our muscles ache. It's not just stress. It's real. It's physical and ignoring it doesn't make it go away. Here's the good news. Just as the body stores stress, it also knows how to release it. And in the next segment, We're going to talk about how to start listening to your body instead of numbing out and what you can do today to start clearing that emotional buildup before it turns into something bigger. I want to share a story about a woman I worked with, we'll call her Julie. Julie had been sick for as long as she could remember. Diagnosed with Crohn's disease as a teenager, she spent most of her adolescence in and out of hospitals on medications and navigating a body that seemed to be attacking itself. She did everything the doctors told her, adjusted her diet, took the prescriptions, followed every protocol, and yet the flares kept coming. The exhaustion was unbearable, the pain was constant, and no one could explain why she was sick. When she came to see me when she was in her late forties, completely drained, not just physically, but emotionally, she told me, I feel like my body's broken, like it's betraying me. And as we started working together, something became clear. Julie had spent her entire life swallowing her emotions just like she had swallowed all the pills and medical advice. She had grown up in a household where she had never really been heard. Where big emotions were inconvenient and keeping the peace meant keeping quiet. She had learned from a young age to push everything down. To not cry, not complain, not make waves. And as we dug deeper, she started to see the connection every time she had a major flare up. It wasn't random. It's always happened after a moment where she had suppressed something, Whether it was resentment, grief, or anger, she was too afraid to express. Her body had been speaking to her all along, but she had never been taught how to listen. No one had ever told her that a lifetime of unspoken emotions could manifest as illness. But once she started connecting the dots, everything shifted. She began practicing breath work, EFT tapping, somatic release techniques, tools that helped her process the emotions she had buried for decades. And slowly her body responded. Her flares became less frequent. Her pain eased. She started feeling energy in a way she'd never had before. And most importantly, she no longer felt like her body was her enemy. She saw it as her greatest teacher. Julie's story isn't unique. So many women carry their stress, their grief, their untold stories inside their bodies and they don't even realize it. But here's what I want you to know. If your body is speaking to you through pain, fatigue, or illness, it's not betraying you. It's asking you to listen. So here's the thing. Western psychology. has done a great job of helping us understand thoughts and emotions and behavior. But when it comes to the body, it's like it doesn't exist. In all of my years of training as a therapist, not once did we talk about how trauma, stress, and emotions physically manifest. Not once. The focus was always on cognitive processes, how people think about their experiences, but never how they feel them in their bodies. And yet, here's what we know. The body is part of the healing process. You cannot think your way out of stored trauma. You cannot rationalize your way through years of stress without addressing the toll it has taken on your physical health, but the mental health field, it wasn't talking about it. And honestly. It still isn't talking about it enough. In grad school, I remember one professor casually saying, every therapist needs a therapist. And sure, that makes sense. We can't pour from an empty cup, but what I never heard was every therapist needs a practice that helps them clear stress from their nervous system. There was no conversation about body based self care. No mention of how sitting with other people's pain day in and day out takes a toll on our bodies too. I was working with clients who had survived trauma, people who were carrying decades of pain, and yet there was no discussion about how I was carrying that energy, how my own body was absorbing stress. How I needed ways to move it through me. And listen, this doesn't just apply to therapists. This applies to every woman who is the emotional backbone of her family, her workplace, her community. If you're the person everyone comes to for support, you're carrying more than just your own stress. You're absorbing the weight of those around you. And if you don't have an outlet for it, your body is storing it. And that my friend is how burnout, exhaustion, and chronic stress take hold. And here's where this becomes even more of a problem. Because as women, we've been trained to suppress. We're taught from a young age to be nice, to keep the peace, to put everyone else's needs ahead of our own. So what happens? We shove our emotions down. We bury stress. Grief, anger, overwhelm, because we don't have time for it, because dealing with it feels inconvenient, because no one ever taught us how to actually move through it in a way that feels safe and productive. But here's the thing, just because you don't feel an emotion in the moment, doesn't mean it's gone. It just means it's hanging out in your body, waiting for an opportunity to surface. And if we don't create space to process it. Um, we find ways to numb it out instead. And I see this all the time. Women who are running on empty, numbing their stress with food, alcohol, overworking, doom scrolling, online shopping, whatever it takes to quiet that inner discomfort. And listen, no judgment. I've been there too. I've used every single one of those coping mechanisms at different points in my life. And for a while they work until they don't, because eventually the body demands to be heard. Whether it's through chronic pain, autoimmune issues, fatigue, panic attacks, your body will find a way to make you listen. The question is, do you want to wait until you're completely burned out or do you want to start listening now? For more than 20 years, I sat across from people, helping them untangle their emotions, process their pain and navigate the complexities of being human. I spent my career as a therapist, guiding others towards healing. And yet for most of my life, I ignored my own. Then one June morning, my body forced me to listen. I woke up to a heart that could no longer beat on its own. Just like that, the very organ that had given so much pumping, sustaining, holding space for others, decided it had done enough. I was rushed into surgery and now my heart beats. With the help of a pacemaker, you'd think that that would have been the wake up call I needed. But even then I kept going, pushing through, carrying on because that's what I had always done. But here's the thing. When you don't listen, the body speaks louder and mine wasn't done trying to get my attention. Now I find myself in the middle of another unknown, facing the reality that my heart functioning is still decreasing. And for the first time, I'm asking the questions I spent years helping others ask. What is my body trying to tell me? The truth is my body has known all along. It was carrying the weight of a story I wasn't ready to face. I grew up in a home where love felt like something I had to earn. I was told I had saved the family just by being born. And while that may have been said with love, the unspoken message was clear. It's your job to keep everyone happy. It's your job to fix things. It's your job to hold it all together. So I did. I learned early on that my needs came last. That love was conditional and that my worth was tied to what I could give, not who I was. I became the helper, the doer, the one who never asked for anything in return. I took care of everyone else and suffered in silence. I never accepted help, convinced myself I didn't need it. I poured love into others without ever believing I was worthy of receiving it myself. And my body took the hit. Years of suppressing my own needs. Decades of stress. Perfectionism. And carrying the emotional weight of those around me. A nervous system constantly on high alert. A heart that after years of giving and giving, finally said enough. So here I am. Learning what it means to heal. Not just physically, but emotionally. Learning to ask for help. Learning to believe I am worthy of the same love I give so freely. Learning that my body is not betraying me. It's guiding me home. And if any part of my story sounds familiar, if you've been the strong one for too long, if your body is whispering or screaming at you, I want you to hear this. You don't have to wait until your body forces you to stop. You can start listening now. So if you're sitting here nodding along thinking, yup, that's me. I've been pushing through, ignoring my body, numbing out. First of all, you're not alone. Most of us were never taught a different way, but the good news is we can reconnect. We can relearn how to listen to the body before it starts screaming at us in this next segment. I'm going to walk you through how to start tuning in, how to recognize when your body is holding on to stress and what you can do today to start releasing it. Because you don't have to stay stuck in a cycle of stress and numbing. There is another way. Just to recap, at this point, we've talked about how stress, trauma, and emotions don't just disappear, they get stored in the body. We've also talked about how, especially as women, we've been conditioned to ignore, suppress, and numb out, instead of actually addressing what our bodies are holding onto. So the big question is, what do we do about it? How do we start listening to the body in a way that actually helps us heal. Here's the thing. The body is always speaking to us. The problem is most of us haven't been taught how to listen. Let's start with this. What if I told you that every ache Every pain, every moment of tension or exhaustion is actually your body trying to communicate with you. And not just the pain, but also the numbness, the places in the body that you don't feel the areas that seem completely disconnected. Those two are signs that something is going on beneath the surface. We've all heard the phrase, trust your gut. But if you ever actually stop to think about how literal that is, if you're feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and anxious, chances are you're going to feel it in your gut. Maybe it's nausea. Maybe it's bloating. Maybe it's full blown digestive issues like IBS or Crohn's disease. And that's just one example. Let's talk about the ways the body holds onto stress. Chronic headaches or migraines. This is often linked to unprocessed mental stress. Back or shoulder pain, carrying the weight of the world or taking on too much responsibility. Fatigue and burnout, the nervous system being stuck in survival mode, never getting a chance to fully rest. Gut issues or unprocessed emotions, literally sitting in the digestive tract. Autoimmune conditions or inflammation is the body attacking itself, mirroring internalized stress or self criticism. Numbing or disconnection from certain areas of the body. This is a huge sign that the body has shut down sensation as a protective mechanism, often tied to unresolved trauma or deep suppression of emotions. And here's where things get really interesting, because in many energy based traditions, like yoga and Ayurveda, these symptoms often correlate with imbalances in specifically energy centers. Okay. And here's where things get really interesting because in many energy based traditions like yoga, Ayurveda, or Reiki, these symptoms often correlate with imbalances in specific energy centers or chakras. For example, throat issues, they're often connected to the throat chakra, linking to speaking your truth, setting boundaries, or feeling unheard. Chronic lower back pain, that could be tied to your root or sacral chakra, our sense of safety and stability and connection specifically to our maternal relative, i. e. our mom. Gut issues. This again comprises that second chakra. As well as the solar plexus, our sense of self, confidence, and personal power. I don't care if you're a science person or a woo woo person. The reality is the body and energy are deeply connected. And when we start paying attention to these signals, we can start making real shifts. So how do we actually start listening and working with the body instead of against it? The good news is there are simple, accessible tools that help us reconnect, process what's stuck and move forward in a way that doesn't leave us burnt out or overwhelmed. The first is breath work. We can use the breath to regulate the nervous system. This is one of the fastest ways to reset the nervous system when we're stressed, our breath shallows, keeping the body in a state of fight or flight. When we deepen the breath, especially with long exhales, it signals the brain that we're safe and it stimulates the vagus nerve. So here's a practice called extended exhale. Start by breathing in through the nose for a count of four. Hold for a count of four and then slowly exhale through the nose for a count of six. Then inhale four, hold four, exhale six. Repeat this for like one to two minutes and notice how your body responds. It's really simple. It's really straightforward, but it works. And if you're feeling disconnected from your body, it's a great way to start bringing awareness back to your body. The next practice is EFT tapping, releasing stored stress in real time. If you've never tried Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT tapping, let me tell you, it's wildly effective for regulating emotions in real time. Tapping works by stimulating acupressure points while focusing on Whatever stress or emotion you're experiencing, helping the nervous system discharge the stored tension. I've had clients come to me completely overwhelmed, feeling anxious, like their body is buzzing with stress. We do five minutes of tapping and suddenly they feel calmer, clearer, more grounded. It's a game changer. The next one is moving or shaking. Why? Because the body needs to release. Remember when we talked about Peter Levine's research on the animals in the wild, how they shake off the stress after a life threatening event, that's because shaking is a natural way for the nervous system to release stored energy and to reset the body. And yet as humans, we don't do it. We tighten up, we suppress, we hold onto it. We sit on the couch and we eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's. So one of the best things that you can do is literally shake it out, stand up, shake your hands, your arms, your legs, jump up and down for 30 seconds. It might feel silly, but I promise you your body will thank you for it. And finally, journaling with the body, asking your body what it needs. This is something that most people don't think to do, actually ask the body what it's holding onto. One of my favorite practices is journaling from the perspective of the body. So try it, find a quiet space, take a few deep breaths, bring your awareness to an area where you feel pain, tension, or discomfort and ask yourself, if this part of my body could talk, what would it say? What is my body trying to communicate to me right now? And then write down whatever comes up. No judgment, no overthinking. You might be surprised by what your body has been trying to tell you. I want to share another story with you about a client I worked with. We'll call her Sarah. Sarah came to me exhausted. She was struggling with chronic migraines, gut issues, and a level of burnout that left her barely functioning. She had tried everything, doctors visits, medication, therapy, but nothing was working. When we started working together, I had her do a simple body scan. The first thing that she realized, she felt completely numb from the neck down. It was like her body wasn't even there. And that was our first clue. She had spent so many years disconnecting from her emotions that her body had literally shut down sensation as a survival mechanism. Through breathwork, tapping, movement, and journaling, she slowly started reconnecting. And what happened? Her migraines eased, the gut issues started to improve, and most importantly, she started to feel like herself again. And this is what happens when we stop ignoring and we start listening. I want you to hear this loud and clear. You are not broken. There's nothing wrong with you. If your body is holding tension, pain, or exhaustion, it's not because you've failed or because you're weak. It's because your body is communicating with you. It's been carrying things for you, holding onto what you have and have the space or tools to process. And that means healing is possible because the body can store stress. It can also release it. So here's my invitation to you. Start small. Take just one minute a day to check in with your body. Close your eyes, take a breath and scan from head to toe and ask yourself, what am I holding onto today? Um, maybe you feel tension in your chest. Maybe your stomach is in knots. Maybe you feel numb, whatever comes up, just notice it. No judgment, just awareness because awareness is the first step towards change. And if this episode resonates with you, if you're feeling that pull to reconnect with your body in a real healing way, then I invite you to join me, whether it's through my retreats, my membership, or just by continuing to tune into these conversations, you don't have to do this work alone. There's a whole community of women on this journey, learning to listen, learning to heal, and I'd love for you to be part of it. And remember your body is not the enemy. It's your greatest teacher. It has been speaking to you all along. The question is, are you ready to start listening? Thank you so much for being here. And I will see you next week. Take care.