The Stories Your Body Carries

The Stories Your Body Carries

How Somatic Awareness Reveals What Words Cannot Express

Reading time: 10 minutes
Best experienced: With pen and paper nearby, and permission to move

There's a reason the phrase is "heartache" and not "brain ache." There's a reason we describe grief as "heavy" and anxiety as "butterflies in the stomach." There's a reason someone might say "I have a knot in my throat" when they're struggling to speak an important truth.

These aren't poetic metaphors. They're somatic reality.

Your body is constantly narrating your life. And most of the time, we don't know how to read the narrative.

The Story That Pre-dates Words

Consider this: A child grows up in a family where anger is forbidden. "Nice people don't get angry," the family message says. But inside, the child experiences normal anger—at injustice, at being told what to do, at feeling powerless.

Where does that anger go? It doesn't disappear. It gets stored. In chronic shoulder tension. In a perpetually clenched jaw. In shallow breathing. In a stomach that's always slightly disturbed. The body holds the story that the mind was never allowed to tell: "My feelings matter. I have a right to my own experience."

Thirty years later, this person might sit across from a therapist and say, "I don't really have problems with anger. I'm pretty easygoing." Yet their body tells a different story. Shoulder tension so chronic they assume everyone lives with it. Digestive issues they've learned to manage. A voice that comes across quieter than they intend.

They've successfully suppressed the story cognitively. But their body remembers. And it's waiting for permission to speak.

Three Ways Stories Live in Your Body

Story One: Trauma

Traumatic experiences—especially those that overwhelmed our capacity to process them—are encoded somatically. Not usually in narrative form (we can often tell the story of what happened), but as fragmented sensations, visceral reactions, and autonomic patterns.

A person who experienced a car accident might not consciously remember the moment of impact. But their body remembers: sudden sounds trigger startle responses. The smell of burnt rubber creates panic. Certain driving conditions produce inexplicable dread.

The body is doing exactly what it's supposed to do: protecting. But the protection is now outdated. The threat has passed. Yet the nervous system continues to scan for danger.

Story Two: Cultural Inheritance

You didn't create the beliefs you hold about race, gender, worth, possibility, sexuality, family obligation, or proper emotion. These were transmitted to you—through explicit instruction, but more powerfully, through embodied example.

If your mother never felt comfortable taking up space, you likely inherited that through your own body: a tendency to make yourself smaller, to apologize, to defer. If your father was disconnected from vulnerability, you may have inherited a body-level learning: emotion is dangerous; the safe response is shutdown.

These aren't thoughts you consciously adopted. They're embodied patterns passed down through generations.

Story Three: Current Experience

Every situation you encounter, your nervous system is narrating: "This is safe" or "This is threat." "This person is trustworthy" or "I should be careful." "This aligns with my values" or "This feels wrong."

Often, these narratives are accurate. Your nervous system has exquisite wisdom about subtle social cues, authentic presence, and genuine resonance.

But sometimes, old patterns contaminate present perception. A boss's direct feedback triggers a childhood story of criticism and shame. A partner's busy day gets interpreted through a story of "I'm not important." A professional opportunity activates an old narrative of "I'm not good enough."

The Practice: Somatic Tracking

Your body's stories emerge through sensation. To access them, you need to develop what I callsomatic literacy—the ability to read the language of sensation.

Here's a practice to develop this capacity:

The Body Story Inquiry (10-15 minutes)

Find a comfortable place where you won't be interrupted.

Step 1: Choose a Topic (1 minute)

Think of something that's been present in your life. Not the most overwhelming thing, but something real that you've been navigating: a decision you're facing, a relationship dynamic, a pattern you notice about yourself, a situation that's troubling.

Don't analyze it. Just choose it.

Step 2: Somatic Location (2 minutes)

Close your eyes. Bring this topic to mind. Not the story of it—just a sense of the situation.

Now ask your body: "Where do you feel this?"

Notice where sensation arises. Your chest? Your throat? Your stomach? Your shoulders? Your hands? Somewhere else?

Don't judge the location. Just notice where your body responds.

Step 3: Embodied Description (3 minutes)

Stay with that location. What's the quality of sensation?

●Temperature: warm, cool, hot, cold?

●Pressure: heavy, light, constrictive, expansive?

●Movement: still, vibrating, pulsing, cramping?

●Texture: rough, smooth, jagged, fluid?

●Shape: Does it have a shape? Is it compact or sprawling?

Describe in sensory terms, not emotional terms. Not "I feel anxious" but "I feel tightness, like a fist, in my upper chest."

Step 4: Compassionate Inquiry (3 minutes)

Now ask this sensation, gently: "What are you trying to tell me? What do you need me to know?"

Don't force an answer. Simply wait. Often, surprising knowing emerges: "You care about this more than you're admitting." "You're scared of failing." "You're not sure you deserve good things." "There's wisdom here that you're not listening to."

The sensation is your body's narrative. It's been carrying this story, trying to get your attention.

Step 5: Gratitude (2 minutes)

Thank this sensation. Thank your body for trying to communicate, even if the communication has been through pain, tension, or numbness.

Place your hand on the location where you felt the sensation. Offer yourself compassion.

This practice is profound because it creates a conversation between your rational mind and your embodied wisdom. You're saying to your body: "I'm listening. I value what you're trying to tell me. You matter."

The Transformation: From Symptom to Story to Wisdom

What's remarkable is what happens when you engage this practice consistently:

1. Symptoms often ease.Not because they're suppressed, but because they're finally being heard. The body's alarm system doesn't need to scream if someone is actually paying attention.

2. You access pre-verbal knowing.There are things your body understands that predated language—wisdom from childhood, from generations before you, from your deepest instincts. Somatic awareness gives these a voice.

3. Narratives become conscious and therefore changeable.An unconscious pattern controls you. A conscious pattern, you can work with.

4. Authenticity emerges.When you stop fighting your body's story and start honouring it, you become more genuinely yourself. The energy previously spent on suppression becomes available for presence and creation.

A Deeper Truth

Here's what traditional therapy sometimes misses:Your body's story is not a problem to be solved. It's wisdom to be heard.

Your chronic shoulder tension isn't a malfunction. It's your body holding strength until you're ready to use it.

Your stomach's sensitivity isn't weakness. It's your body's exquisite attunement to what's digestible and what's toxic.

Your tendency to dissociate isn't a defect. It's a survival mechanism that once protected you from overwhelming pain.

The invitation is not to erase these patterns but totransform them from unconscious compulsions into conscious resources.

When you can feel your body's wisdom, you're no longer at the mercy of it. You can draw on it. You can dialogue with it. You can gradually, gently expand what's possible.

Your Homework

For the next week:

1.Use the Body Story Inquirywith 2-3 different topics. You're training interoceptive literacy.

2.Notice your body's narratives throughout the day.When do you feel expansion? When contraction? What is your body saying?

3.Offer your body gratitude.Instead of fighting sensations, try: "Thank you for showing me this. What does it mean? What do you need from me?"

4.Move gently.Your body's stories often shift through movement. Yoga, dance, walking, stretching—anything that invites your body to speak.

Closing Reflection

Before you finish, I'd like to invite you into something more vulnerable.

Is there a story your body has been trying to tell you? A sensation that's been persistent, that you've been managing or ignoring? What if, instead of pushing it away, you turned toward it with curiosity?

What if that symptom, that tension, that numbness—what if it's not the enemy? What if it's your body's most faithful companion, carrying a story it believes you need to know?

That's the invitation of the Story pillar:Trust your body's narrative. Listen to what it's been trying to say. And in that listening, discover wisdom you didn't know you possessed.

Next post:We'll explore the third pillar—Strategy—and discover how embodied wisdom transforms decision-making and innovation.