For many of us, stress has become so normal that we don’t even recognize it anymore. We wake up thinking about what needs to be done. We move through our days taking care of everyone and everything. We push through exhaustion, override discomfort, and tell ourselves we should be able to handle more. Then one day, our body gets louder.
Maybe it’s tension that never seems to leave. Trouble sleeping. Digestive issues. Headaches. Pelvic discomfort. A racing heart. Anxiety. Fatigue. Pain that moves around or persists even after we have done everything we were told to do. We go to the doctor, have the bloodwork, the imaging, the testing, and sometimes the answer comes back: everything looks normal.
But you don’t feel normal.
Somatic Experiencing
As a registered nurse and practitioner studying Somatic Experiencing, I have become increasingly interested in the space between what we can see on a medical test and what a person is experiencing in their body. Medicine is essential. Symptoms should be appropriately evaluated, and physical causes should never be dismissed. But a normal test does not mean that a person’s pain or symptoms aren’t real. Chronic pain can persist without a clearly identifiable cause, and changes in the nervous system can make us more sensitive to pain and other sensations.
This is where I believe we need to expand the conversation about stress and mental health.
Stress does not live only in our thoughts. It is felt throughout the body. The autonomic nervous system constantly gathers information and helps us respond to our environment. When something feels threatening, our physiology can mobilize us to fight or flee. At other times, we may shut down, freeze, brace, or disconnect. These are not character flaws. They are biological protective responses.
Somatic Experiencing offers a useful lens for understanding this. Rather than focusing solely on the story of what happened to us, somatic work invites us to gently notice what is happening in the body now: tightness, warmth, trembling, pressure, movement, breath, an impulse to pull away, or perhaps an area that feels numb or difficult to access. Somatic Experiencing theory proposes that chronic stress and trauma can involve dysregulation of interconnected autonomic, emotional, motor, and arousal systems, and uses awareness of internal bodily sensations to help the system regain flexibility.
Practice Noticing
I sometimes describe this to clients as energy or activation that feels “stuck” in a part of the body. That is not a medical diagnosis or something we can necessarily see on an MRI. It is a way of describing the lived experience of a nervous system that may still be bracing, protecting, or responding as if something has not fully ended.
Think about how your shoulders rise when you are under pressure, how your jaw tightens when you hold back what you want to say, or how your stomach changes before a difficult conversation. Our bodies participate in our experiences. The beautiful part is that we can begin working with the body rather than fighting it.
One of my favorite practices is simply noticing. Look around the room. Let your eyes rest on something pleasant. Feel your feet on the floor. Notice where your body is supported by the chair. Then become curious about one sensation in your body without immediately trying to change it.
This ability to perceive internal bodily sensations is called interoception. Research increasingly examines the relationship between interoception, stress, and chronic pain, and preliminary evidence suggests that mind-body therapies may improve interoceptive awareness and some pain outcomes.
Curiosity Changes the Conversation
Instead of immediately asking, “What is wrong with me?” try asking, “What am I noticing right now?” Instead of “How do I make this stop?” perhaps begin with, “What might my body need?” And instead of seeing your body as something that has betrayed you, consider that it has been trying very hard to protect you.
Healing does not mean ignoring medicine, pretending pain is psychological, or blaming ourselves for our symptoms. It means expanding the conversation. It means recognizing that our physical and emotional health, environment, relationships, experiences, and nervous system are deeply interconnected.
Your body is not the enemy.
Perhaps one of the most powerful natural therapies available to us is learning to listen to it again, not with fear but with curiosity, compassion, and respect. Sometimes healing begins when we stop asking our bodies to be quiet and finally become willing to hear what they have been trying to say.
Kerry Martin, RN-CHC, is a registered nurse and holistic health coach and the founder of Wise Concierge Wellness in Woodbury, Connecticut. She works one-on-one with clients to help them understand how they live, identify where they are out of balance, and gently recalibrate their lifestyle through nature-based practices, nervous system support, and personalized insight. Email: kerry@wiseconciergewellness.com, call 203.405.1616, and visit: wiseconciergewellness.com to learn more.
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