The Body Remembers
How Trauma, Stress, and Habit Shape Our Inner World
The body remembers everything.
In many ways, that’s what the body is: memory. Every sensation you feel today—your posture, breath, tension, and reactions—was learned, stored, and repeated until it became your normal.
Trauma, injuries, and stress don’t just happen once and disappear. They leave impressions in the nervous system that change how we breathe, move, think, and protect ourselves. Every shock, every surgery, every moment of fear or overwhelm shapes the way the brain communicates with the body.
How the Body Stores Pain and Stress
When something overwhelming occurs—an injury, surgery, accident, war, assault, loss—the nervous system responds immediately:
muscles brace
breath becomes shallow
heart rate spikes
blood pressure rises
the mind shifts into survival mode
This is the body trying to keep you alive.
But if the system never fully discharges this survival energy, it gets stuck. What began as a moment of protection becomes a pattern running in the background. Muscles forget how to release. Breath stays tight. The mind stays on alert.
Even small triggers begin to feel dangerous.
Over time, this chronic activation contributes to:
neck and back pain
digestive issues
chronic anxiety
sleep disruption
headaches
emotional instability
burnout
depression
In modern life, this inability to “let go” of stress is one of the major root causes of physical and mental illness.
Thomas Hanna & Sensory-Motor Amnesia
Somatic educator Thomas Hanna described a phenomenon called sensory-motor amnesia—a loss of voluntary control over muscles that have been bracing for too long.
These muscles aren’t tight because they want to be.
They’re tight because the brain has forgotten how to relax them.
This creates chronic holding patterns we don’t even notice:
Green Light Reflex — living in constant “go mode”
Red Light Reflex — collapse, rounding, withdrawal
Trauma Reflex — twisting, asymmetrical bracing
Somatic work helps reawaken these forgotten pathways and restores the conversation between brain and body.
Developing the Felt Sense
As we build the felt sense—the ability to feel internal sensations with clarity—we start noticing:
where tension lives
how stress shapes breath
what thoughts cause bracing
where fear sits in the body
how old habits show up automatically
This awareness is the first step in unwinding chronic patterns.
Through gentle movement, breathwork, and re-education, we teach the nervous system how to release old tension and return to ease. The body begins to understand that it is safe again.
Breath & the Fear Circuit
Stress changes breathing instantly. The breath becomes shallow, fast, choppy—signals of fear and unsafety.
A dysregulated breath keeps the fear circuit activated.
When breath becomes slow, soft, low, and quiet, the whole system begins to shift:
vagus nerve activates
heart rate lowers
muscles soften
thoughts slow down
clarity returns
the body learns safety
Breathing is one of the most direct ways to influence the nervous system.
The Mind as a Habit Loop
Every physical pattern begins as a mental pattern.
Our thoughts shape our breath, posture, and movement.
If we constantly react from old trauma, we strengthen a negative feedback loop:
fear → tension → pain → fear → tension → pain
This becomes our default operating system.
Shifting this loop is the heart of yoga therapy.
Yoga teaches us how to reshape the mind into a supportive, compassionate presence.
My Realization: Pain as a Learned Response
I didn’t realize until almost forty years old that much of my pain was a learned response to trauma. For decades I believed my back pain, digestive issues, and emotional struggles were separate problems. I didn’t understand that they were connected—and that they were patterns my body had learned.
Somatic work changed that.
The practices were gentle and intuitive. They brought relief I had been searching for my entire adult life. Most importantly, they gave me hope. I always believed the body held answers, but I never knew where to look.
Yoga therapy showed me how to finally listen.
Healing Takes Time
Pain doesn’t appear overnight, and it doesn’t disappear overnight.
After twenty years of suffering, I realized that healing was going to be a long, patient journey.
The body remembers what it knows—especially the painful things.
Old patterns return not because you’re failing, but because the nervous system is trying to protect you in the only way it has learned.
Healing is repetition:
release
relearn
repeat
Over time, the nervous system adapts to a new way of being.
The Path Forward
Build your felt sense.
Nurture your breath.
Train your mind.
Stay patient, persistent, and compassionate.
Healing is not a miracle.
It is a practice—one that transforms you from the inside out.
