Episode Thirteen: The Body Remembers Everything

There are some conversations that feel easy to sit down and have, and there are others that ask for a little more time. This was one of those conversations. I had actually planned to record The Body Remembers Everything last week. The topic and outline were there, but when it came time to sit down in front of the microphone, something in me kept saying not yet. I've learned enough about myself to know that sometimes hesitation is worth listening to instead of forcing my way through it.

Part of that hesitation came from knowing how carefully I wanted to choose my words. When we talk about the body remembering, conversations about trauma naturally become part of that discussion. Those experiences deserve nuance, care, and expertise. I'm not a therapist, neuroscientist, or trauma specialist, and I'm not here to diagnose anyone or explain the clinical mechanisms of trauma, memory, or the nervous system. I'm simply human, someone who has lived through my own experiences, done a lot of healing work, and become curious about the relationship between what we understand intellectually and what we experience inside our bodies.

Waiting helped me realize that The Body Remembers Everything doesn't have to be a conversation only about trauma. Our bodies haven't only been present for what hurt us. They've been with us for everything: heartbreak and love, fear and safety, stress and relief, grief and laughter. They've carried us through difficult relationships and into healthier ones. They've been there for childhood memories, family traditions, losses, celebrations, recovery, friendship, music, dancing, creativity, ordinary mornings, and moments when life felt so beautiful we wished we could freeze time.

Our bodies have traveled through every version of us, and sometimes they seem to remember those experiences before our conscious minds do. A smell can transport you somewhere you haven't thought about in twenty years. A song can bring back an entire version of yourself before you've consciously remembered why it matters. Sometimes our shoulders tighten before we've decided we're uncomfortable. Our stomach drops, our jaw clenches, or we realize we've been holding our breath without noticing.

Those responses can be confusing, especially when our minds are telling us we're fine. Throughout this season, we've talked about how easily self-awareness can become self-criticism. We notice something happening and immediately begin interrogating it. Why am I doing this? Why does this still bother me? I thought I had already worked through this. Suddenly, noticing our own response becomes another opportunity to decide we're somehow failing at healing.

What if we approached those moments differently? Instead of immediately asking, "What's wrong with me?" perhaps we could begin with, "What am I noticing right now?" We don't always need to assign a story to every sensation. Sometimes awareness can simply be awareness, and when something feels intense, persistent, or needs deeper support, trained professionals can help us explore those responses safely.

But there's another side of this conversation that deserves just as much attention: our bodies also recognize comfort. Think about the people whose presence makes something inside of you soften. The familiar voice that settles you, the hug that makes your shoulders drop, the pet that curls up beside you after a difficult day, or the house where you can take off your shoes and somehow breathe differently.

Places can do this too. Maybe it's the ocean, a hiking trail, your grandmother's kitchen, your own bed, a garden, or a favorite coffee shop. Sometimes we walk into a place and our whole body seems to exhale. I love asking: What makes your whole body exhale? When we talk about healing, we can spend so much time identifying what activates us that we forget to notice what settles us.

What makes you feel safe enough to soften? What makes you playful? Who makes you feel like you don't have to perform? What environment helps you breathe deeper? What makes you feel like yourself? Those questions have become increasingly important to me as I've built Thrivewell because so much of the philosophy is centered around embodiment.

You can understand grounding intellectually, but experiencing groundedness is different. We can know we need rest and still struggle to receive it. We can understand boundaries and still feel uncomfortable enforcing one. We can know we're worthy of care and still struggle when someone offers it. Knowledge matters, but eventually what we know has to become something we practice.

That's why the Five Pillars of Return were never meant to be ideas we simply memorize. Ground can become an experience of presence. Cleanse can create space. Protect can help us honor what we need. Nourish can become the experience of receiving care and restoration. Align can reconnect us with the parts of ourselves that feel honest and alive. Movement, breath, creativity, journaling, music, nature, community, and stillness can help us move beyond thinking about our lives and actually experience them.

Healing also isn't about erasing everything that came before us. Sometimes we expect that if we've really healed, nothing from our past should affect us anymore. We shouldn't have old emotions surface or need reassurance. But what an impossible standard that creates.

Maybe progress doesn't mean never having a response again. Maybe it's recognizing what's happening sooner and having more choices in how we respond. Maybe it's recovering more gently, stepping away when we're overwhelmed, asking for help, setting a boundary, or realizing, "This feeling is familiar, but my circumstances are different now." That doesn't erase the past. It expands the present.

Two weeks ago, we talked about holding two truths at once, and that applies beautifully here. Something can have affected you deeply, and you can also be safe now. You can acknowledge something still feels tender while recognizing how far you've come. Last week, we talked about learning to receive, and that belongs here too. Maybe one of the new experiences we're giving ourselves is asking for help and discovering someone actually shows up. Maybe it's allowing someone to love us without pushing them away, resting before we're depleted, or making a mistake and responding with compassion instead of punishment.

These moments might seem small, but our lives are largely made of small moments. Instead of constantly asking how we can make ourselves forget what happened before, perhaps we can begin asking: What am I giving myself opportunities to experience now?

More rest, movement, laughter, creativity, nature, safe relationships, and connection. More moments when we can look around and recognize, "I'm here. I'm okay. This feels good." Sometimes we become so focused on healing the person we were that we forget we're also creating experiences for the person we're becoming.

The past matters, but it isn't the only experience available to us. Our bodies have carried difficult chapters, but they've also carried every belly laugh, dance, embrace, moment of warm sunshine, song that gave us chills, ridiculous joke, and experience that reminded us how good it can feel to be alive.

The body remembers those things too.

When I think about the title of this podcast, Becoming the Sanctuary, I don't imagine sanctuary as a place where nothing difficult ever happens. Sanctuary isn't perfection or permanent calm. A sanctuary is somewhere we can return, and that's what the Five Pillars have always represented to me: Ground when we're scattered. Cleanse when we're carrying too much. Protect when something needs a boundary. Nourish when we're depleted. Align when we've drifted away from ourselves.

Maybe becoming the sanctuary in our own bodies doesn't mean controlling every response. Maybe it means developing a different relationship with ourselves—listening instead of fighting, choosing curiosity instead of criticism, learning what helps us settle and what makes us feel alive, and creating experiences that remind us there is more available to us than survival.

Your body has been with you through every chapter of your life. It has known fear and safety, heartbreak and love, exhaustion and rest. It has survived, yes, but it has also laughed, danced, connected, created, loved, celebrated, and experienced joy.

Maybe healing doesn't ask us to force our bodies to forget where we've been. Maybe it asks us to listen more closely to what we're experiencing now and create more opportunities for safety, connection, rest, joy, movement, creativity, and love. Not because those experiences erase what happened before, but because they become part of our story too.

Perhaps that's what becoming the sanctuary really means. Not creating a body that never reacts or a life where nothing difficult happens, but slowly building a relationship with ourselves that gives us somewhere safe to return when it does.

Thank you for spending another Friday with me. This week, pay attention to what makes you tense, but don't forget to notice what makes you soften. Notice what makes you breathe deeper, what makes you laugh, and the people and places where you feel most like yourself.

Because healing doesn't require you to forget where you've been. Maybe it asks you to keep discovering what else your body can experience along the way.

#BecomingTheSanctuary #ThrivewellEstate #HealingJourney #Embodiment #MindBodyConnection #EmotionalWellness #PersonalGrowth #FivePillarsOfReturn #SelfAwareness #ReturnToYourself

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Becoming the Sanctuary. If this is your first time here, my name is Kelly, founder of ThriveWell Estate, and our first physical branch, Thrive Well Hub, located right here in Whitensville, Massachusetts. This podcast is a space where we explore healing, embodiment, emotional awareness, creativity, human connection, and what it actually means to return to yourself while still living inside a very overwhelming world. I've actually been sitting on today's episode for a little while, and I think I understand now why I needed to. And I listened to that. Because this is a very delicate topic. I talked a lot on this podcast about healing, the nervous system, our emotions, and the relationship we have with our bodies. But I also know there are places within those conversations where I need to be incredibly thoughtful about the words I choose. I'm not a therapist, I am not a neuroscientist, and I am not a trauma specialist. I'm just a human being who has lived through my own experiences, done a lot of healing work, and become deeply curious about what it means to live inside a body that has been with us through all of it. And I understand that trauma can have very real effects on the body. That's not something I want to casually simplify into a catchy podcast conversation or pretend I have the clinical expertise to explain. And maybe that's why I couldn't record this last week. I knew I wanted to talk about it, but I also knew I needed to wait until I could find the right way to talk about it. And not as an expert explaining trauma, but as a human being exploring something I think so many of us recognize inside of our own lives. And now, after giving this episode a little more space, I finally feel ready to have this conversation. Because when we talk about returning to ourselves, eventually we have to talk about the body we're returning to. Our bodies have been there for it all. The difficult chapters, absolutely. The heartbreak, the fear, the stress, the moments that changed us. But they've also been there for the laughter, the love, the friendships, the celebrations, the places we've called home, the music we've danced to, the peoples whose presence had made us feel completely safe. And sometimes our bodies seem to remember those experiences before our minds consciously do. A smell can transport you somewhere you haven't thought about in 20 years. A song can bring back a version of yourself you thought you'd forgotten. Your shoulders might tighten around a certain person before you've consciously decided you're uncomfortable. You can walk into a familiar place and suddenly feel something you can't quite explain. But the opposite happens too. A familiar voice can settle you almost immediately. A certain place can make you exhale the second you walk through the door. A hug from someone you love can soften something inside of you. A song comes on and you're smiling before you've even remembered the story attached to it. And that's the part of this conversation I'm really interested in. Because the body remembers everything, can sound heavy. And yes, I think we have to acknowledge that our bodies can carry the effects of difficult experiences and trauma. That's part of why I've been so careful about how I approach this episode. But I don't want to make this conversation only about what has hurt us. I want to talk about everything our bodies have experienced. What makes us tense and what makes us soften, what overwhelms us, and what settles us. What makes us want to pull away, and what makes us feel safe enough to move closer, what feels unfamiliar, and what somehow feels like home. We can understand ourselves intellectually, we can become incredibly self-aware. We can recognize our patterns, change the way we speak to ourselves, practice boundaries, learn to receive, and understand exactly why we might respond to something the way we do. But still, sometimes the body has something to say before before we found the words. Now I want to be thoughtful about how I talk about that today. As a reminder, I am not a therapist, neuroscientist, or trauma specialist. And I'm not going to try to explain the clinical mechanisms of trauma, memory, or the nervous system. There are trained professionals who can do that with far more expertise than I can. What I can talk about is being human. Living inside a body that has traveled through every chapter of our lives with us. A body that knows stress, but also knows relief. A body that knows fear, but also knows safety. A body that knows heartbreak, but also knows love. A body that has survived things, yes, but has also loved, danced, rested, connected, created, celebrated, and experienced joy. And maybe that's where this conversation becomes less about asking our bodies to forget what happened before, and more about becoming curious about what we're teaching them now. What are we giving our bodies more opportunities to experience? More safety, more rest, more movement, more connection, more joy, more moments when we can simply exhale and recognize I'm here, I'm okay, this feels good. That's what I want to explore today. Not just what the body remembers, but what it can continue to experience, learn, and become familiar with as we move forward. All right, let's dive in. All right, so for this first part, we want to really focus on and talk about how your body has been with you through everything. So we often talk about our lives as though the mind is the narrator and the body is simply carrying it around. But if you have taken some of our workshops um or just explored what Brivewell is all about on our social media or um or on our website, wherever, wherever I've figured out how to plump this um brand to help build it. But there's so much about when I teach intuition and how to not just how to trust it, but how it communicates. So so much of we we think in these big moments that we have to think, or or at least I did, but that's where the overthinking comes in. Um, but the mind is not the narrator, the body is saying something that the mind interprets. And so when I really started learning this, and that's when you think about that that why our bodies absorb so much, because it's recognizing, like we talked about, it's recognizing these patterns. So if you step into um, you know, an environment that was that was familiar in your past, and whether that was good or bad, your body's gonna remember that. But and it and it's our that physical experience, it's woven into almost every memory that we have. And we think about how memory, it's it's sensory. And a lot of what we lean into here is aromatherapy, but also smell, your sense of smell is the number one memory trigger of all senses. Um, but but all of them do have the ability to to bring back that you know that same memory, where you have smell or sounds or textures or temperature, or like we talked about music or places, um, a childhood food, something that you, you know, something that you would have that your parents or your grandparents or your babysitter or whoever it was, um, that that can really bring you back. For me, um it's it's American Chops suey and meatballs and rice. Those two meals, um, one at each of my parents' house, that really is a childhood food that just gives me so much comfort. And I mean, American Chops suy, when I make that, I I eat it for days for that exact reason. Um, but in the same breath, you know, the sounds, a song can make you remember exactly where you were when you first heard it. And I mean, there's so many examples I could give you of that. Um, but one in particular is um, and I'm gonna give a shout out here to my friend Rachel, uh childhood friend, who is is still in my life, and and she is she's crushing it down in in Florida. Um and she's it's also I'm gonna give her a plug. You should look up Third Shift Wellness. Um, it's a new protein drink that her and her partner Sarah, you should definitely follow them on social media, and they're really showing their story as well of what it takes to build a brand and a very intentional and ethical brand from the ground up. So sorry, just had to give that little shout-out. Go check them out, Third Shift Wellness. Um, can't wait to to put in the first order. Um, but anywho, I digress. Um I remember vividly watching the InSync music video for tearing up my heart in her living room, on her her, the in the house that she lived in when we were growing up. Um, shout out to William Street, because that neighborhood was awesome. But I just like so vividly remember watching it and just this excitement, you know, with teenage girls that was running through us. Um, and then that was also like one of my first concerts on my own without my parents um and her dad. I'm really digressing here. Shout out to Ira. He he took us there with this. Um, I want to say we went to the garden. I think that's where it was. But um, but anyways, as you can see, how much just even talking about that one song just triggered all these amazing memories um of just pure joy and and what I thought was was true love, right? Um with Insync itself. And so it's just like moments like that where you really think about my body, just I mean, I remember the car ride there. I remember the car ride home. I remember I'm pretty sure this was the the night, and I had a really hard time of staying awake at sleepovers. And I remember my friend Rachel went to go take a shower and she was like, Don't fall asleep, I want to talk about the concert, and I just fell asleep. But all of that, like I'm saying, has been triggered by that one memory of that one song. Um, and it just the the ability to have these moments is endless. You could walk into an old building, old building, um, and it can create an emotion before you've consciously remembered the story attached to it, right? Our bodies have been present for every single version of us: childhood, relationships, loss, recovery, celebration, fear, love, all of it. Um, and and I want to, you know, challenge you to ask yourself, what does your body seem to remember before your mind catches up? And when I think about my own lived experience, um, like I just said about InSync and um the music, but to bring it back um a little bit more, not and not bringing it back a little bit more, but I'm trying to really think about that in my in my own sense, like smelling lilacs. The smell of lilacs just really brings me back to childhood too, and the smell of a horse farm and going to um the hatch cell at in Boston at City Hall Plaza and going to those oldies concerts um that 103.3 used to put on back when they would play oldies. My dad and my stepmother would take um us there, and it's almost like I'll I'll have that memory, um, and my body can just feel it. And and of course, um, sometimes those memories feel beautiful, and sometimes our bodies react to things we wish no longer had power of us, and I think that's why I'm hesitating here to really dig deep. Um, because for me, when I'm still working through, I can remember the good times really well in those memories that can come up and when my body remembers them before I do. But I also have some moments when I don't, I get a little nervous to dig deep, to be honest, because some of the memories I could unlock are a little scary. I I don't, like I said, I don't want to get too deep on the trauma side of this. Um, but my body does have trauma, like so many of us do. Um, you know, there's there's abuse in there with some old relationships. Um there's, I want to tread lightly here because I have family members that listen to this, but there's some sexual abuse trauma that's in there, um, that really, you know, for any person, man or woman, um, or any individual, sexual abuse trauma, it really runs deep. Um, so when we when that reaction comes before the thought, and it's the reaction is a negative one, um, and it doesn't feel good. I mean, I know in myself it's my heart starts racing, my stomach drops, uh, my jaw starts clenching, my shoulders rise up, I'm holding my breath without even realizing it. And suddenly I become really, really restless, and I have this flighty feeling like I just need to leave, and I don't even know where I'm leaving to. Um, but this this can be confusing when mentally we believe we're fine, right? Quote unquote fine. Um, you know, and we want to criticize ourselves and the temptation to criticize ourselves, you know, even after you've gone through your healing journey and you've really um done some therapy and work with mental health professionals um and trauma coaches, and you're still having that reaction. And it's why am I still reacting like this? Um but you have to remember what we talked about. I think it was, I mean, I don't even know, five, six, seven, somewhere around there. We talked about how healing is not a punishment. Um, and facing these parts of ourselves and healing through parts of these experiences is for the for the growth, right? And it can be really uncomfortable and it can be really hard, but it's not self-punishment. In order for me to face, I just keep it about myself, for me to face what happened to me at some of my most traumatic moments, I did have to face it. And that's why I say make sure that you have your support system and you have your team of people behind you, because some of the things that the body remembers are really dangerous to pull through and work through alone. And a book that I will highly recommend it's a tough read, but I highly recommend, and so many people who have, whether I met them in treatment, um, in early sobriety, or throughout my my healing journey at the deeper level, have recommended this book, and it is called The Body Keeps the Score. And if you are interested in understanding more, um certainly more than what this podcast would put out because I am like touching on not even the tip of the iceberg, um, just really trying to making it a conversation piece because I think it's important to know that there's nothing wrong with you, that that these feelings are normal. Um, but but I would I would highly recommend um reading that and and talking to your team of, you know, whether it be mental health professionals or um family and friends, and make sure that it's it's right for you at this moment. Because when we do have that feeling of why am I still reacting like this, it can be really frustrating and it can be really defeating. Um, but but having a reaction doesn't mean you failed at healing. Um sometimes noticing the response that is still there is the growth. So instead of immediately asking yourself, what's wrong with me, ask, what am I noticing right now? And the same way we talk about this curiosity, um, whether it be about ourselves or recognizing patterns or you know, trying to interpret our dreams, let's try and do it without judgment. Let's just see, you know, what are you noticing? Keep track of that, keep a journal. That helps me a lot is to just keep writing stuff down so I can understand um more. Because awareness um, without immediately assigning meaning to it, is some of the most helpful awareness that I've had because I'm really I'm not trying to self-diagnose or understand what's going on with me at a point where I don't really have enough knowledge or or a team behind me that that would be able to understand the meaning behind it, if that makes sense. But definitely, I can't say this enough as we we finish up this section. Like I said, I don't want to stay on it too, too long. Um, but if that reaction is intense or persistent, and and definitely if it's connected to trauma, um professional support is is immensely valuable here. They will help you guide you through that. Um, and there is another side. It is it is possible, um, but definitely get in touch with who you need to get in touch with um to make that happen. But I do think that there's another side of this conversation that gets talked about far less. Um, and that's that the body remembers good things too. We often hear um body memory conversations framed entirely around pain. And that's because I think those are um those are the ones that hold us back. They hold us back from opportunities and experiences and certain relationships. Um but when we focus on how the body remembers the good things too, it's it's what's coming to me right now is if anybody has ever, you know, you've lost a loved one, which many of us have. Um, and depending on who that person may be, remembering them can be really painful. Painful because it just makes you realize how much you miss them. Sorry if I get emotional here unexpectedly, but um how much you miss them and you almost become fearful to talk about them because you don't want to cause anybody else that same pain. But what I have learned, um, and especially with some of the loss that was um harder to explain why the person in my life left too soon is eventually those memories start to come with a smile. Um and it's still painful that they're not here, but your body is remembering, remembering the good memory of them and the good feeling, and then your mind is interpret that, interpreting that versus just the sheer pain of missing them. Um so it's kind of similar here. The more we practice with that the body remembers good things too, um, and really trying to because your body's gonna remember either way. So remember, it's the awareness piece, it's all it's us noticing it. Um, but I think about what comfort feels like. You know, when you really think about comfort, what is what does that mean to you? Um the smell of someone's home, a favorite blanket, your dog's body curled right beside you, which if you I wish you all could see Charlotte right now, because she did come to the hub with me today and she just looks cute as a button in that corner, just all curled up. Um, and for me, Charlotte is something that really helps my helps me interpret um my body remembering the good and the bad because she is 10 years old. So the first half of her life, uh, she was with me in in my drinking and the worst of it. And the second half of her life, well, not second half, she's still very much healthy, and we've made a a deal that she's gonna be around for a long time. Um, but is a lot of a lot of good memories um and and creating a life that that she deserves and just making her as as happy as possible. But she um she helps me interpret how my body remembers the good and the bad, like I said, but mostly good. Um and for her, her next me has some days I think she's part of the reason I'm still here. Um but getting back to the good, I don't want to digress too bad, you know. See how much even myself just naturally pulls into the bad things that that your body remembers. But um hearing someone you love laugh. Um I mean, hearing hearing babies laugh, my word, that's that's such a nice feeling. Uh the ocean air, rain dropping down on you, music, familiar traditions. I mean, all of it being hugged by someone you trust, like think think about in yourself, um, walking into a place where, you know, like the old show with cheers. So everybody knows your name and you feel so welcomed. And even if they don't know your name, you're still feeling welcomed. Anybody who's in traditional recovery um and and goes to AA or NA, you know, that it's that's a that's a lot of what you get, is just being completely welcomed unconditionally. And it's important to remember that your body can associate experiences with comfort and familiarity too. Um, and this matters because healing isn't only about understanding what hurt, it's also about creating more experiences of safety, joy, belonging, and connection. And that's really um why I want you to ask yourself now, and why we're talking so much about comfort and and with comfort, you know, what makes you feel safe and feel good? Think about yourself. What makes your whole body exhale? Like, I know you can't hear this right now, but there's the church bells going here in the center of town. You know, they go off, I think it's three times a day, but it's six o'clock, um, which it is now, they go off, and it is one of those sounds. I don't know what it is, why church bells just make me feel so good. Um maybe it's that small town feel. Who knows? I'm not trying to figure out right now. That's the point, right? Um, but what makes your body exhale has become an increasingly important question, um, not just for my body, but but people's body in general, because that question has become increasingly important to me as I've built Thrive Well Hub and Thrive Well Estate as the brand, right? Because when we create experiences that the body can feel, and when I was creating Thrive Well Hub, I really thought about everything almost so much, not that it had me, you know, I think that it had me lose sleep, it definitely did. I lost a lot of sleep, but in the best way possible because I wanted to think about how did the Kelvins of the light bulb make you feel? How does the paint that's on the walls make you feel? How does the smell when you first walk in the door make you feel? How does the music in the background make you feel? And I think the only um the only thing I wasn't able to put into the hub, um, because you know, with Board of Health and everything, is is taste. I mean, I do have nice refreshing cold water, so that might do it too, just just that. But we can create experience, the body, experiences that the body can feel. Um, and that's why Thrive Will has never been only about information. Um, and and you can you can read about grounding all you want and have the awareness of what grounding is, but experiencing groundedness is different. Um you think of so many different experiences, movement, breath, journaling, creativity, music, scent, nature, community, all of it. Um sitting around a table with other people and being able to connect with them on no specific topic in general, but everybody is just respectful of truly listening and meeting you um with just that unconditional attention and support and love. And that's why I knew, and it was expensive, but it was worth it to me, um, that the physical environment of the hub matters. The five pillars as I start to build um the business more and more, and there's more to come, I'm really leaning into um more education for myself and more offerings, and just having this philosophy and the five pillars themselves really become the heartbeat of this entire space and this entire brand because they weren't meant to exist only as ideas. You know, let's let's walk through all five of them. Ground, you experience presence, cleanse, you experience space, protect, you experience safety and boundaries, nourish, you experience care and restoration. And lastly, align, you experience connection with yourself. And this is part of why embodiment has become such an important word within myself and thrive well as a whole. Because we don't only want to understand a different way of living, we want opportunities to practice it. And I can speak from these last few days myself. Um, something that I have been really thinking about these last couple months, and I've talked about it, is that shift of moving from awareness to embodiment, right? I'm I've been saying a lot, you know, referring my age, because I think it's just an important time in anybody's life, um, coming up to this midlife. But all of a sudden, 41 is snuck up on me and it's already next month. And I think that the fact that this year, I mean, granted, I did a lot in this year, but it really flew by. And I'm not gonna lie to you, that that scared me a bit. And I have all these practices and ideas of how the life I want to embody, and I have the awareness of what they wanted to be, but what is holding me back from actually doing them? And I know for myself the reasons why I haven't really leaned into it, where it's coming out of my comfort zone, I'm not flexible, I feel like I'm not good at as everybody else, I needed to be different, I didn't want to be compared to anybody. But yoga, I mean, I feel like most people would expect that I do yoga, but I don't. And this morning I really decided, and I even shared a video of me doing it because I needed to get over that perfectionism that still runs so deep in me. Because uh I need to start embodying the life. Never mind just to for a business and to lead by example for me myself. Um, because practice matters because one peaceful experience doesn't erase everything that came before it. So the more that I practice this embodiment, whether it's yoga or slowing down in the morning or being more present when I get home at night, whatever that practice is, um I need to continue to do it because everything that came before, it's in it's embedded in us, it's embedded in our DNA. And a lot of this, most of this did not happen overnight. So the solution um and the practice isn't going to be learned or presented overnight either either. And that leads me into the next part of this podcast, is and this is something with feelings or the past itself that I have heard many people who have come in, they're trying to find a way to remove it. But healing isn't erasing the past the same way it's not removing anxiety or fear or sadness. Um, because sometimes we we approach healing as though success means becoming unaffected by our history. You know, that the topic, the questions that we we talked about at the beginning. Why does this still bother me? I thought I was over this, I've done so much work. But healing doesn't require forgetting. Progress can look like recognizing what is happening sooner, you know, having more choices in how you respond, recovering more gently after difficult moments. I think when I really started seeing the growth in myself, and I think my parents can really speak to this more than anything, um, because they were really there, you know, and and no shade to my dad whatsoever. But my mom and I lived together when I was in early recovery because she was just coming out of the pandemic and neither of us, you know, she was living alone during the pandemic, and neither of us wanted to live alone. So she really um was with me for some really raw times at the beginning. But I think where I really saw the growth there, it wasn't so much that I wasn't having the emotional reactions because I was, I was very raw and emotionally reactive still. But my turnaround to apologize or recover from that reaction, that time in between kept getting shorter and shorter. And when I held accountability for myself, or you know, realized I had some defense mechanisms popping up, or I was shutting down or sticking my head in the sand, whatever that looked like, um, I could see that turnaround happening faster and faster. So that's where you have more of the healing and more of the growth. Like I said, it's not that I wasn't having the reactions anymore. I definitely was. It was just, I knew how to recover better after those difficult moments. Um, a lot of what helps me and what I see helping other people is asking for support and setting a boundary. Setting boundaries are so important during a healing journey. It's something we're gonna continue to talk about more and more time. Um, and same as asking for help. You do not need to be hyper-independent, you don't need to do it. Just ask for support, especially um when our body remembers something that's difficult. Something else that you can do is leave an environment that doesn't feel right. Simply don't go to the places that used to be, you know, you have those hard times in. Uh, there's not many places that I that I tend to avoid that I know of yet, but there are a few that are a non-negotiable for me that I will never go back to because it's just I don't need to work through the stuff that much to ever need to go back there. Because I know those environments would definitely not feel right anymore. And of course, um, you know, something something else that helps is allowing yourself to rest. You know, a body that is in survival mode, and that's what happens when we don't allow it to rest. It healing is much harder. Um and when you're you're not just like plowing through all of it, to be honest, I don't know how much healing actually even happens throughout that. Um you you have to slow down, you have to let yourself rest. And I hate, I don't really love using those words that you have to, but it's just it's one of the most important parts of healing, and especially when we, in a sense, are untraining the body to respond in certain ways and encouraging it to respond in other ways. But when you receive support too, um, that's becoming a part of that new experience. You know, your body is starting to learn that these experiences aren't the same as they were in the past. Um, but remember, one of my favorite things to say is how many things both can be true. This affected me, and I am okay now, can both be true. And that's what we're talking about. It doesn't erase the past, like it did happen, and you don't want to end up gaslighting yourself that it wasn't that big of a deal or it never happened. Um, but you can remind your body and show, you know, create practices that that help it understand that you're okay now. But the past can matter without controlling every decision in the past in the present. Um, and think about that. That you can have the lessons learned from the past, but don't have to control every decision in the present. And I think honestly, part of that is knowing that we can't control every decision in the present. That might be the growth within itself. Um, because maybe then the question isn't how do I make my body forget, right? We're talking about all of all of this as a whole. Um but what experiences are you repeatedly giving yourself today? You know, what what type of safe relationships? Basically, giving your body something new to learn, predictable routines, rest, nourishment, movement, nature, get out in nature, creativity, laughter, boundaries. Your body loves boundaries. It's your mind that doesn't, it's those people-pleasing ways. Um but asking for help and having someone actually show up for you, you know, like we talked about when you have safe relationships and you have people who are coming in for the right reasons and you're they're in your corner. Um, that's something new for your body to learn. Uh I know we just talked about people pleasing and boundaries, which this is like still really hard for me to understand. But saying no and discovering the world doesn't fall apart. Like you can say no to too much. You can say no to situations, you can say no to people, you can say no. The world is is going to keep going. But something else is, you know, what we do to ourselves, making a mistake and responding with compassion instead of punishment. Try to really think about how you talk to yourself in the moments of making a mistake. And trust me, coming up on five months of being open here in the hub, there's a lot of times that I could go back and respond with punishment instead of compassion. And it takes more work for me to respond with compassion, but it's something that I'm very much continuing to practice. And I really am feeling the rewards of it and with my nervous system. Um, resting and discovering you're still worthy. This is such a hot topic that we continue to talk about. You know, that permission to rest. We don't need it. We can just rest, and you are still valuable as the person who you are. Being visible and discovering that you can survive being misunderstood. You know, I don't need everybody to approve of how I look or how I act or my mannerisms or my story or what I'm doing. I can survive being misunderstood. And that's not something I could have said six months ago. Honestly, that's not something I could have said three months ago. But another way that we can teach our body is something I struggled with and still struggle with at times, is receiving love without immediately pushing it away. You know, having that self-worth to know that you do deserve to receive that love. And and we we accept the love we think we deserve. So if our self-worth is, you know, in the toilet, that's the type of love we're gonna think we deserve. But I just, these aren't magical fixes, they're experiences and they're meant to be practiced over and over and over and over again because what the what the result, um, you know, healing can include accumulating different experiences over time. So we are basically stacking all these experiences together, and and the same way that we retrain and rewire our brains, we're doing the same thing for our body. And maybe this is where all 12 conversations that we've had before this one begin to meet. Because when we talk about the podcast name itself, becoming the sanctuary, how do you become the sanctuary in your own body? And that's the thing, is is so much about grounding, too. And just in general, our body should be our first altar. And you want to think about becoming the sanctuary is not about becoming perfectly calm, it's it's quite the opposite. It's it's just it isn't never being triggered, sad, angry, afraid, or overwhelmed. It doesn't mean nothing difficult happens there. It means that there is somewhere safe to return. Remember, think about the five pillars. Ground when you feel scattered, cleanse when you're carrying too much, protect when something needs a boundary, nourish when you're depleted, and align, when you've drifted away. From yourself, because your body is not something you need to conquer, it has carried you through every chapter, every day, every minute of your life. And maybe healing means developing a different relationship with it. Listening instead of fighting, curiosity instead of criticism. I don't know if you heard that, but my dog is dreaming. I hope you can hear that because it's always adorable. Um, but yeah, I mean, care instead of punishment, that one alone, returning instead of abandoning. Your body has carried every single version of you. Remember that. Your body has carried every single version of you. It has been there through things you thought you'd never survive, but it's also carried laughter, love, connection, pleasure, and joy. So as we come to a close to this, I want to remind you of a few things. We don't mean to romanticize every physical reaction or interpret every sensation. But we can become more curious about what our bodies are communicating. We can stop treating every uncomfortable response as evidence that we're failing. I need to remember that myself. We can intentionally create experiences that feel different from the ones that shaped us before. Healing is not about forgetting. Healing can be expanding what feels possible. Because maybe the body remembers more than we realize. It remembers the places where we were afraid, but it can also become familiar with the places when when we feel safe. But it also knows the feeling of being loved. It remembers what it's like to survive, but over time, perhaps we can give it enough experiences of living that survival does not have to be the only language it knows. And I don't think healing asks us to re-erase the person we were or convince our bodies that nothing difficult ever happened. Maybe it asks something much gentler to notice, to listen, to respond with compassion, and to keep giving ourselves new experiences of safety, connection, joy, rest, and love. Because your body has been carrying you this entire time. Perhaps becoming the sanctuary means learning how to become a safer place for it to land. And I think on that note, that's where we should end it. And I know this episode felt a little, or maybe this is just me doing what I normally do and giving myself permission to not overthink later. Um, but it's a difficult topic to talk about in a general sense. But I hope you took something away from this podcast, and I hope you understand that we do have more power in our healing than I think for myself at times I even realize. But thank you for spending another Friday with me. Um, I never take these conversations, your time, or the trust you place in this space for granted. Um, if there is, and I'm gonna really try hard to stop saying um so much, I hear it in myself all the time. But uh, I almost just did it there. No. So if you think that this podcast could help somebody else, if you could please share it, give us a like, rate it, whatever it is. I don't know all the terms yet, but you can find it wherever podcasts are streaming and also on YouTube. I do hope to eventually be able to do video, um, but until I'm a little more tech savvy, it just takes a little bit too much time. But I'm really, really grateful to have the opportunity to be here every week um and really stay accountable with this. And I'm just so happy that you're here and listening. And until next week, be gentle with yourself. Listen to what your body is telling you and remember this final part. Healing does not require you to forget where you've been, it asks you to discover what else your body can learn along the way. Until next time, we'll see you next week, and thank you for listening to Becoming the Sanctuary.