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How Somatic Healing Helped Me ReleaseTrauma & Reconnect With My Body

TW: abortion

For most of my life, I lived from the neck up.

If you’re a high-achieving, late-diagnosed ADHD woman like me, you probably know that place well; where the brain runs the show, the calendar dictates your self-worth, and the body is just the vessel you drag along for the ride. 😬

I was a master at keeping it all together. Until I wasn’t.

What I didn’t realize for years was that everything I’d ever experienced, every heartbreak, success, betrayal, mask, and unspoken emotion, was quietly stored in my body.

It wasn’t gone. It was just waiting for me to slow down enough to listen.

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Learning the Language of Release

When I first heard about somatic release, I honestly thought it sounded dramatic. I imagined wild movements, loud cries, or people shaking uncontrollably. My Capricorn brain wasn’t having it.

Then came my first holotropic breathwork session, a structured, intentional breathing ceremony paired with music and a microdose in community.

Four hours.

A room full of strangers.

A tiny dose of fungal courage.

Within the first three songs, something in me broke open.

Tears came that didn’t belong to the present moment; they felt ancient and familiar. I WEPT. Seriously, in a way I maybe hadn't in decades.

My mind flashed to the child I had terminated years before, a shelved memory I rarely touched, one I usually kept behind layers of logic and distance.

What happened next is hard to explain unless you’ve had a similar experience.

I saw this child, laughing, free, warm - and heard, clear as my own voice: You don’t have to memorialize me. I’m with you always. I’ll just be back when you're ready.

That moment both slaughtered me and mended something all at once.

The shame, guilt, grief, sadness, anger all came up and seemed to almost go poof with this visions' laughter.

Then went completely still for the rest of the journey.

And when I came back to myself, I knew: this work isn’t just powerful, it’s sacred and I must be of service.

As I write this right now, tears are in my eyes at the memory of this chapter. Sheesh.

Within weeks, I began training in holotropic breathwork. It has since become a cornerstone of my resilience coaching, not because it’s trendy, but because I’ve lived its impact. I still practice it regularly. I facilitate it for others in community. I’ve watched clients shed years of tension, shame, and self-protection in a single session when the right safety and support are in place. I've also watched clients connect dots they never considered, dreamt up businesses, found the courage to end something that wasn't serving them.

For someone who’s built an identity around control, being cracked open by breath alone felt both disorienting yet divine.

But underneath the fear was an undeniable truth: my body had been holding stories I no longer needed to carry. Maybe….some of them aren’t even mine?

What It Means to Truly Let Go

Letting go isn’t a single, cinematic moment.

It’s a practice, an accumulation of choices to loosen that white knuckled grip.

For me, it’s looked like:

Crying without censoring myself.
Shaking out energy after coaching sessions.
Using tapping (EFT) before client calls.
Laying on an acupressure mat.
Going to acupuncture weekly.
Sinking into hot springs.
Lymph. massage.

These are my ways of releasing, not as escape, but as return.

Because each time I release, I come home to myself. I remember that healing isn’t about being fixed; it’s about being free.

The Mask I Didn’t Know I Was Wearing

In one of my recent breathwork sessions, an old story resurfaced, one I thought I’d long since buried.

At twenty-one, after a painful breakup, I unconsciously decided: I will never be chosen again. That belief became armor. It protected me, but it also kept me isolated.

Years later [honestly, a decade] even in a loving relationship, I could still feel the ghost of that mask whispering, “Don’t trust it. Don’t relax.”

Another set of breathwork sessions and I felt the masks dissolve. My body softened. My tears weren’t from sadness this time, they were from release. From the quiet relief of being seen by my own self again.

Finding Your Own Release

Everyone’s release looks different.

Some people journal. Some paint. Some scream into a pillow, shake on a dance floor, or sit in silence until something shifts. The “how” isn’t really the point [unless you’re dealing with an addiction of escapism in which case, group work or therapy may be a better first stop on this journey] it’s that you give your body permission to speak.

Because when you stop trying to think your way out of pain and instead feel your way through it, healing finds you.

So ask yourself:

What am I ready to release?
What story, fear, or mask have I outgrown — but still wear out of habit?
And what would it feel like to finally let it go?

Release isn’t a one-time event. It’s a rhythm, one that your body already knows by heart.

All that’s left is for you to listen.

If this resonated with you:

Let’s get a session in - where we explore somatic release, self-regulation, and embodied healing in real time.

Hey, I'm Viki

Just a lass of many facets. TLDR: I’m a resilience coach empowering late diagnosed neurodivergent women from living in states of TENSION to living in a state of INTENTION. As a trauma informed practitioner, I support people through coaching, somatic guidance and communal events.

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