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I used to think grounding meant calming down. If someone had suggested a grounding exercise to me ten years ago, I would probably have smiled politely and then carried on doing whatever felt more productive. There was always something more important than stopping to notice my breathing or the feeling of my feet on the floor. Besides, I was functioning. Working. Travelling. Looking after other people. From the outside, everything appeared perfectly manageable. My body was tell

A friend of mine once apologised to a waiter three times because the restaurant had brought her the wrong meal. Not complained. Apologised. She laughed while telling me the story, but I could feel the recognition in my own body immediately. That strange reflex of trying to smooth things over before anyone has even become upset. The quick smile. The overly agreeable tone. The subtle tightening in the chest while saying words you do not actually mean. Most people think trauma r

A few years ago, I was standing in the kitchen trying to decide whether to answer an email. That was it. One email. Nothing urgent, nothing particularly difficult. But my body was behaving as though I had been asked to defuse a bomb. My jaw was tight. There was heat moving up my neck. I kept opening the laptop, then walking away from it again. At one point I found myself reaching for a sweet snack, which is apparently one of my nervous system’s preferred avoidance strategies.

As a child I used to wish I didn’t have a body. It was inconvenient as that is where I felt things, and feelings were hard. Growing up I stopped noticing it. I could notice everyone else. Their moods, their needs, whether they were comfortable, uncomfortable, irritated, tired. I could read what mood my mother was in before she uttered a word. As I grew up that turned into being able to read a room within seconds. Useful skill in community work, terrible skill if it comes at t

So many clients can tell the story beautifully. They can explain what had happened, why it had affected them, how it connected to earlier experiences. They understand the patterns. They have insight coming out of their ears, frankly. If healing were based entirely on being articulate, many people would have been finished years earlier. Meanwhile, their bodies are still clenching every time I ask about certain topics. There is a particular exhaustion that comes from understand

Is this you or something like you? The phone is in your hand before your eyes have properly opened. There is a tightness across your chest that you barely register because it has been there so long it feels like weather — just the climate you live in. You move fast from the moment you get up. Coffee, kids, inbox, commute, meetings, lunch at the desk, more meetings, dinner, couch, screen, bed. By the time you stop, you are so wired and so depleted at the same time that sleep d