Episode 2: When Your Body Keeps the Score

Where Is Your Heart Today? – Conversations with Rosie Motene

Episode 2: When Your Body Keeps the Score

You left the toxic environment.
You're finally safe.
So why does your body still behave as though the danger remains?

In this deeply personal episode, I explore what happens after we leave spaces that have harmed us. Drawing on my own healing journey and reflections inspired by The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, I  unpack how prolonged stress and chronic dysregulation can continue to live in the body long after we've physically walked away.

Together, we'll explore the connection between chronic inflammation, fatigue, digestive issues, disrupted sleep, perimenopause, and the nervous system, while recognising that our bodies are not betraying us, they are protecting us.

I  also share the daily practices that have supported my healing, including body scans, somatic grounding, breathwork, walking, and learning to rest without guilt.

If you've ever wondered why you're still carrying the weight of an experience you've already left behind, this conversation is for you.

Because healing isn't about forgetting.

It's about teaching your body that today is different from yesterday.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Greetings, beloveds. Where is your heart today? Welcome to the second episode of this series. This episode I've called Where Your Body Keeps the Score. Now, the name for this particular episode was inspired by a book that I read that profoundly changed the way I understood about what was happening to me. It's a book by the psychiatrist Bessel van der Kork, and it is called The Body Keeps the Skull. The book explores how trauma isn't something we remember with our minds. It lives in our bodies. It can show up in chronic stress, inflammation, digestive problems, disruptive sleep, the dreaded anxiety, tension, and a nervous system that remains on high alert even after the danger has passed. So reading and rereading the book made me realize that so much of our experiences that are associated with trauma make sense. So in the first episode of the series, I shared why physically removing myself from an environment that I once loved became absolutely necessary. It wasn't an easy decision, but it was one that my body had been asking me to do for a very, very long time. In this episode, I want to talk about what happened after I left. Because here's the part that no one really prepares us for. So you leave, you find me safe, the environment has changed, the people are no longer around you. So why does your body still respond as if you're in danger? Why does hearing somebody's name make your chest tighten, or when you see an email notification, you feel nauseous or your stomach drops? Why do you find yourself replaying conversations in your head, conversations that happened months ago? Why are you still exhausted? I used to ask myself all of these questions. And the reality is that moving yourself does not guarantee that everything will simply go back into place, that everything will feel normal again. Instead, our bodies continue to carry the weight of what our mind desperately wanted to leave behind. So through this process and reading, I learned something incredibly important. I learned and realized that my body wasn't betraying me, it was simply remembering. So instead of becoming frustrated with our bodies, we can learn to appreciate them. And in my case, I appreciate the fact that my body carried me through environments that my heart had outgrown. It had done exactly what it is designed to do. It kept me alive. Healing then isn't and wasn't about forcing myself to move on. It was helping my body understand that I'm finally safe. Because after you've spent long periods in toxic spaces where there is patriarchal disrespect, fear, trauma, your body doesn't suddenly receive the member that it's safe now. What it does, it keeps on protecting you. Not because it's broken, but because it loves you. It simply hasn't realized that the danger has passed. Now understanding that changed everything for me. Not only after this instant, but even previous ones. And it will help me in the future. It helped me stop seeing my body as an enemy. Instead, I started to thank it for the protection. Then there were the obvious signs. One of the biggest physical changes is um has been shared in the book. And I noticed that it was a chronic inflammation. I felt swollen and heavy. Everything hurt. Some mornings I woke up feeling as if though I hadn't even slept. My body constantly felt like it was carrying something, something heavy. Because it was stress. It was carrying stress. And stress isn't just emotional. It can and it did become physical. What happens in these cases is that our muscles tighten, tighten, our breath changes, hormones become disrupted, inflammation then increases. The body is constantly preparing itself for danger, danger that never quite arrives. So fatigue and tiredness become another companion. And unfortunately, it's not the type of tiredness that disappears after a good night's rest. So this is a perfect reminder why we can't simply bounce back. Because healing isn't an event, it's a process. Now, on top of all of this, around the time when the bodily changes were happening, I'd entered perimenopause. And of course, at first I struggled to separate what belonged to hormonal changes and what actually belonged to chronic stress. Eventually I realized that they were speaking to each other. Perimenopause was asking my body to adapt, and stress was asking my body to simply survive. These are two very different conversations, which explains why so many of us who go through this feel so overwhelmed. Another symptom is looking at the digestive system. Our gut is often called second brain, and mine had clearly begun listening. Nausea, stomach craps, change in appetite, discomfort that appeared before meetings, and then one obvious case, a sudden horrible stomach flu bug that happened at the onset of a board meeting. Looking back now, my stomach had been telling me what my mouth hadn't yet found the courage to say. This space is not safe. So now finding myself again, my body wasn't saying you're back to where it started. It was saying there's something here that needs extra little bit more kindness. As we know, healing isn't linear, it's like um, it's like waves. Sometimes they're calm, sometimes they're overwhelming, but every wave teaches us something about ourselves. So if you're in this phase, be gentle with yourself, be kind with your body, love and appreciate your body. Here are a few tips that helped me. They're not quick fixes, but they are an invitation to reconnect with yourself. The first is to practice body scams. So every morning I would wake up, and I still do, and I stop for a few minutes and simply ask, how does my body feel today? Where is my heart today? Where am I holding tension? What emotion is sitting in my chest? What is my body trying to tell me before my mind starts taking over? The second practice was daily check-ins. Instead of asking, what do I have to do today? I begin asking with, what do I need today? Sometimes the answer was productivity, sometimes it's rest, but both are equally valuable. Somatic grounding, feeling the earth, touching a tree, breathing, holding a cup of warm tea, running hands under warm water are also perfect, beautiful, beautiful skills to enhance. And simply things that remind your nervous system that I'm here, I'm safe. Of course, breath work is always a daily part of my life, not because it magically removes anxiety, but because every conscious breath reminds my body that it is no longer needed to fight for survival. And perhaps the hardest lesson of all is to rest, and to rest without guilt. No, not resting because I've earned it, but rest or resting because I'm exhausted, resting because I'm worthy of it. That is one lesson that continues to transform me. So if you're listening today and your body is still reacting long after you've left, I want you to hear this. Your body isn't failing you, it's remembering. So be patient with yourself, be gentle with you, and remember it's carried you through so much and carried you through spaces and environments more than people will ever know. So healing isn't about forgetting, it's about teaching your body that today is different from yesterday. Thank you so much for listening. Until next week, continuously ask yourself where is your heart today?