Returning to My Body After Years of Disconnection

For most of my life, I lived disconnected from my body. I lived in my head. I am an overthinker. I’m always analyzing my environments and anticipating the needs of those around me. I could imagine the worst-case scenario in almost any situation, which served me well in certain roles, particularly in risk analysis. But it cost me my health, and it deepened my disconnection from myself. For a long time, the only way I noticed my body was through pain.

Our nervous systems begin learning how to respond to our environments in the womb. They are designed to protect us, and our earliest years do a lot to shape how that protection gets patterned. My early life gave rise to developmental trauma and Complex PTSD. By the age of 21, I was already being diagnosed with conditions that I now understand as communication from a nervous system on chronic high alert. I had IBS and was put on antidepressants after a doctor told me my symptoms were “psychosomatic,” as though that was the answer, and some pills would just fix it. It was like a diagnosis and medication was a place to stop, instead of an invitation to listen. I did not do well on the medication. I tried four, with no success and only adverse side effects, before stopping. Later came severe allergies and five years of shots, GERD, uterine fibroids, and autoimmune conditions. By the time I was 40, I had a growing list of diagnoses and surgeries. My body had been communicating for years. I just did not understand its language.

The shift toward understanding did not come quickly, and it did not come by pushing harder. It came through time, learning, and a lot of patience with myself. Now I notice when I clench my jaw, or my shoulders are creeping toward my ears, or tightness in my chest or shallowness in my breath. I understand that my nervous system is still trying to protect me. But instead of trying to reason my way out of it, I have learned to ask, “what is it trying to communicate?”

Sensation literacy, the ability to recognize and interpret the signals of the nervous system, became one of the most important foundations of my healing. It is the language the body had been speaking all along. With the support of an extensive network of practitioners, I reached a place where I could feel pain and meet it with curiosity instead of fear. Sometimes the answer is that my body is responding to a real physical injury or illness. Most often, it is telling me to slow down, to ground myself, to go inward. I listen to my body in ways I never had before.

That question, “what is my nervous system trying to communicate?” eventually became the foundation of the work I now offer through AlchemizMe. I have come to understand that calming the nervous system is a valuable skill, but calmness is not a state we live in continuously. In the world we live in, being calm all the time is neither practical nor the goal. I want my nervous system to work. I want to be able to respond to genuine danger but not experience everything as danger. And I don’t mind experiencing joy from time to time. So, the goal isn’t calmness for myself or my clients. The goal is capacity, the ability of the nervous system to move through a wider range of experience without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down.

One of the most powerful ways we build that capacity is through co-regulation, practicing in the presence of another grounded, attuned person. Our nervous systems developed in relationship to others and our environments, and they continue to need to be in relationship to heal. The presence of someone who is regulated and genuinely present can help a nervous system settle and find communication it cannot reach in isolation or solitude. This is one of the reasons community spaces for this work matter so deeply to me.

My work through AlchemizMe is grounded in all of this. What I have been taught, and what I have endured, experimented with, questioned, resisted, and continue to practice. I guide people in developing their own communication with their nervous systems. I assist them in learning to respond to themselves with compassion rather than judgment. My clients are often the ones others rely on, the responsible ones, the caretakers, the ones who hold space for everyone else. They deserve a space where their own nervous systems can finally be supported. Where they can put some of what they have been carrying down. Where they can begin to expand their own capacity.

I believe that capacity grows through consistent practice, co-regulation, and time for integration. We do not need to push harder or be stoic. We need understanding, connection, safety, and compassion. And we need to give ourselves permission to begin.

If you recognize yourself anywhere in these words; the overthinking, the holding it all together, the weight in your body you have carried so long you have forgotten it is there, your nervous system may already be asking for something different. You can read more reflections from my life and work by following or subscribing. I am here beside you, not ahead or above you.

Have you found ways to feel more connected to your body? I’d love to hear what works for you.