Coming Home to Your Body: A Beginner’s Guide to Embodied Body Image Healing
Part 2 of a Two-Part Series on Somatic Healing for Body Image
In Part 1, we explored how our nervous system shapes our relationship with our bodies and why traditional approaches to body image often fall short. We learned that lasting healing requires more than changing our thoughts—it requires creating safety in our nervous system and rebuilding our embodied experience. Now, let's explore how to put this understanding into practice.
Why Traditional Approaches Can Cause More Harm Than Good
When we try to work with body image without addressing nervous system regulation, we often inadvertently recreate traumatic patterns.
Mirror exposure without regulation skills can trigger shutdown.
Body-focused mindfulness might amplify dissociation.
Positive affirmations can feel like gaslighting when the body is holding trauma.
Even "feeling your feelings" can lead to overwhelming emotional floods.
Understanding this helps us see why we need a different approach—one that honors our body's protective responses while gently building new capacity.
The Journey Back Home: Meeting Yourself Where You Are
Beginning Steps: When Coming Home Feels Scary
For those who feel very disconnected from their bodies, even the idea of body awareness might feel overwhelming. This is completely normal. We start with what I call "toe-dip" practices—brief moments of attention that don't ask too much. Think of it like meeting a shy animal—you move slowly, respect boundaries, and let trust build naturally over time.
Simple starting points might include:
Taking just three conscious breaths
Feeling the temperature of your hands
Noticing the pressure of your feet against the floor
The key here isn't duration or intensity but building a friendly relationship with physical sensation.
Building Capacity: When You're Ready for More
As your comfort with body awareness grows, you might find yourself ready to explore more fully. This doesn't mean jumping into intense practices but rather extending moments of awareness and adding new dimensions to your exploration.
You might begin to notice:
How emotions show up in your body
The subtle shift of sensations as feelings move through you
Your breath changing with different emotions
Certain movements feeling intuitively good
This stage often involves discovering (or rediscovering) your body's natural rhythms. This is your body's wisdom beginning to speak more clearly as you learn to listen.
Working with Common Challenges
When You Can't Feel Anything
The experience of numbness or disconnection is incredibly common, especially if you've spent years in a challenging relationship with your body. Rather than seeing this as a problem to fix, we can approach numbness with curiosity.
Start by acknowledging where you are. If you can't feel your body, can you feel the absence of feeling?
Can you notice the quality of the numbness? Is it thick or thin, heavy or light?
When Emotions Feel Too Big
Sometimes connecting with our bodies brings up intense emotions—grief, anger, fear, or shame.
This is natural; our bodies hold our histories, including difficult experiences we haven't fully processed. The key is learning to work with emotional intensity in a way that feels manageable.
This might mean developing containment practices—ways to feel emotions without becoming overwhelmed.
Imagine having a volume dial for your experiences, or a container that can hold intense feelings safely.
The Dance of Embodiment and Regulation
Embodiment and regulation work together. When we're regulated, we can be more present in our bodies. When we're present in our bodies, we can better recognize and maintain regulation. This interplay creates a foundation for healing.
Building Body Safety
Before we can fully inhabit our bodies, we need to help our nervous system recognize that presence is safe. This means:
Noticing moments when being in your body feels okay
Finding friendly entry points to body awareness
Discovering what embodied safety feels like for you
Recognizing your unique rhythms of connection and disconnection
Discovering Embodied Resources
Our bodies hold not just trauma, but also wisdom and resilience.
We can begin to:
Find places in our body that feel neutral or pleasant
Experience how our body naturally seeks balance
Notice what helps us feel grounded and present
Build trust in our body's signals
Making It Real: Daily Practice
The real magic happens not in formal practice sessions but in the small moments of daily life:
Noticing tension in your shoulders while at work
Feeling the pleasure of warm water during a shower
Catching self-critical thoughts early and returning to sensation
These aren't extra tasks to add to your day but ways to infuse presence into what you're already doing.
The Bridge to Body Image Healing
When we understand body image struggles through this lens, we see that negative body image isn't just about thoughts—it's about a deeper disconnection from our embodied experience. As we build our capacity for embodied regulation, we often notice:
Critical thoughts have less grip because we're grounded in physical experience
Body signals become clearer and more trustworthy
Pleasure and comfort in our bodies become more accessible
We can navigate challenging body moments with more resilience
Remember: Body image healing through embodied regulation isn't about forcing love for your body. It's about creating conditions where a different relationship with your body becomes possible—one based on presence, understanding, and authentic connection rather than judgment and control.
Your Body: Come On Home
Your body has been with you through every moment of your life. It's held your joys and sorrows, your triumphs and struggles. While the journey of coming home to your body takes time and patience, each small step matters.
Remember: Body image healing through embodied regulation isn't about forcing love for your body. It's about creating conditions where a different relationship with your body becomes possible—one based on presence, understanding, and authentic connection rather than judgment and control.
This is why the practices we explored earlier matter so much. Each moment of regulated embodiment is a step toward rewiring your nervous system's relationship with your body. Each time you notice, allow, and stay present with body sensations in a regulated way, you're building new neural pathways that support a more integrated relationship with your body.
In this way, healing body image becomes less about working on your body and more about coming home to it—finding your way back to the wisdom, aliveness, and belonging that were always there, waiting to be remembered.
🧡,
Reclaim Therapy is a group of trauma focused body image therapists in Horsham, PA.
We provide EMDR for body image, EMDR for eating disorders, eating disorder treatment and treatment for PTSD and Complex PTSD. We believe that all people are deserving a peaceful and fiercely compassionate relationship with their body.
Looking for body image therapy or therapy for eating disorders in Horsham, PA?