The Body Keeps Score

I am a runner; it is my exercise and stress relief. When I travel, I always bring my running shoes and headphones. I also bring my knee brace, as I have had two surgeries on my right knee.

My body is a lattice of scars: my right shoulder from an ORIF of my humerus, right pinkie (I don’t even recall what that one is for), and my stomach for prior gastrostomy feeding tube.

The one that I spend the most time trying to hide is my scar from my tracheostomy, which sits at the base of my throat, required after I was a pedestrian struck in the streets of Florida. I was never expected to get off the ventilator, much less survive, and when I awoke from the coma, it was a constant reminder of what I had endured. It took the birth of my son via C-section to make me appreciate what all these scars represented — my strength and resilience.

I don’t recall the accident that gave me some of these scars, and thankfully, women don’t recall the pain of childbirth fully; otherwise, we would never voluntarily recreate the experience after our first child (I still yearn for my girl child). We don’t recall, but our body remembers and tell the tale.

Through LinkedIn, I was fortunate to be introduced to Chen Lizra, a somatic healer.

If you ask, “What is a somatic healer?” you are not alone, as I asked the same question. Chen taught me that you can’t heal the mind without releasing the same emotions from your body. Your seasonal depression and your anger over a failed marriage are all trapped in your body, even as they circle in your thoughts. They may be calmed by your time on a therapist’s couch but will still be trapped somewhere in your body until released through somatic therapy, and you can’t heal your mind if you are not willing to feel it all. And that is sometimes hard to do alone.

I don’t like others to speak for me, so I asked Chen to speak for herself in this month’s edition of WCGR because the body keeps score.

Doctors, your body is speaking. Are you ready to truly listen? ???? Burnout, stress, depression, and exhaustion aren’t just mental states — they’re deeply embedded in your body. When you push through fatigue, numb emotions with food or distractions, lose appetite, or feel disconnected from your vitality, it’s a sign that your nervous system is overwhelmed. Somatic healing offers a robust, proven path to faster and deeper results than traditional talk therapy. Why? Because we work through the body, the body processes, understands, and releases trauma far more efficiently than the mind alone. The word “somatic” comes from “soma,” meaning body, and somatic healing allows us to access the wisdom stored in our body, bypassing the mind’s defenses and over-analysis, disconnecting us emotionally. Somatic Intelligence reconnects you with your body’s innate ability to heal. You can release stored stress and trauma through a profoundly healing experience, nervous system regulation, and somatic movement, restoring vitality, resilience, and a profound sense of well-being and joy. This approach goes beyond mindset shifts, facilitating lasting change by addressing the root cause held within your body. A powerful component of this process is “witnessing” — fully experiencing and acknowledging your emotions rather than suppressing them. By doing so, your body can release tension, process past emotional wounds, and let go of internal blockages. This isn’t merely about changing thought patterns; it’s about creating a safe space within yourself to feel, release, and deeply heal. With 70% trauma in adults in the modern world today, we must bring self-awareness to what goes on inside us and learn to heal somatically. The result? Greater clarity, ease, and the ability to reclaim your vitality without running on empty while growing your impact. Your work demands so much of you. You deserve to feel in inner alignment.

You can learn more about it here: https://www.powerofsomaticintelligence.com.

Experience Somatic Energy Healing | The Power of Somatic Intelligence

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