The body remembers...
The body remembers what the mind tries to forget. It holds onto unseen wounds, the betrayals, the fractures that form when the weight of existence becomes too much to bear. The nervous system, delicate, intricate and wise, begins to unravel, thread by thread, when there is too much going on.
Undiagnosed physical ailments whisper at first, a dull ache, an exhaustion. But over time, they begin to scream, demanding attention in the form of pain, dizziness, breath that falters, a heart that races in panic... The body fights against an invisible war, uncertain, unsure if it is the self turning against itself. It is a quiet betrayal, a slow erosion of certainty, until all that remains is a body that no longer trusts its own existence.
And then there are the betrayals of the heart. The kind that steals the breath from your lungs, that makes your chest tighten and your stomach churn. When trust shatters, so does the nervous system. Safety dissolves into fight or flight, eyes scanning every interaction for hidden daggers, ears tuning to the slightest shifts in tone. The body, now convinced that danger is everywhere, never rests. What was once soft, goes rigid.
But perhaps the worst of it all is when the world itself crumbles. When the fabric of reality, the structure that once felt solid, reveals itself as fragile and unreliable. War, loss, injustice… each fracture in the foundation sends shockwaves through the body. The weight of it all presses down, suffocating, until survival feels like moving through water, limbs heavy, mind clouded.
To live through this is to be caught in a storm without shelter. The nervous system stays locked in survival, unsure when the battle will end, or if peace will ever return. And yet, the body, even in its breaking, holds within it a quiet resilience. A longing to be held, soothed, understood.
To heal is to listen. To offer oneself the safety the world could not give. To piece together what was broken with hands that shake but do not surrender. It is slow, uncertain, but possible. Even after betrayal. Even after the body falters. Even after the world falls apart. Because the body remembers pain. But it also remembers how to mend.