Good Girl Gone...Free (Part 6): The Somatic Side

There are stories your mind has forgotten

that your body remembers perfectly.

Purity culture didn’t just shape what we believed.

It shaped how we breathed.

How we held tension.

How we moved.

How we shut down.

How we learned to leave our bodies

while still living inside them.

For many of us, the real damage didn’t happen in the head —

it happened in the nervous system.

And because of that,

healing doesn’t happen in the head either.

It happens in the body.

This is the somatic side of liberation.

The quiet work.

The trembling work.

The work no one warned us we’d have to do

once we decided to reclaim our pleasure, our desire, our truth.

Purity Culture Teaches the Body to Contract

Your body learned survival long before you learned language.

Conditioning showed up physically:

• tightening in the throat during intimacy

• clenching in the pelvis

• numbness where there should be sensation

• breath that stays shallow

• shoulders that curl inward

• legs that tense automatically

• an instinct to freeze when arousal begins

• a reflex to disconnect right when you want to be present

This isn’t dysfunction.

It’s conditioning.

It is your body saying,

“I learned this pattern to keep you safe once.”

Shame has a posture.

So does conditioning.

And so, beautifully, does healing.

Your Nervous System Was Trained to Treat Desire as Danger

Dr. Caroline Leaf often explains how emotional experiences create physiological pathways.

Purity culture paired:

• desire with danger

• pleasure with punishment

• curiosity with guilt

• embodiment with fear

So when you try to reconnect with your body now,

your nervous system defaults to its old programming.

This is why you might feel:

• anxious when your body awakens

• hesitant when you want to open

• numb when you want to feel

• guilty when you experience pleasure

• overwhelmed when you allow intimacy

• disconnected even when you feel safe

These reactions are not signs of brokenness.

They are signs of old wiring being activated.

Somatic healing is the process of teaching your body that the threat is gone.

The Body Wants to Heal — If You Let It Speak

Somatic work asks a simple question:

“What is your body saying?”

Not what your theology says.

Not what your shame says.

Not what your past partners said.

Not what the good girl script demands.

But your body.

The quiet teacher.

The old friend.

Somatic healing honors:

• sensation

• breath

• intuition

• movement

• grounding

• opening

• slowing down

• truth

Your body doesn’t lie —

it only whispers.

Somatic work is learning to hear it again.

How the Body Releases Shame (This Part Is Sacred)

Shame isn’t just emotional —

it is physical.

It lives in muscle memory,

fascia,

breath patterns,

pelvic tension,

frozen responses.

And here’s the miracle:

The body knows how to let go

when it finally feels safe.

Release can look like:

tears that come from nowhere

breath that deepens on its own

warmth spreading through the chest or pelvis

trembling or shaking (a trauma-release response)

a sudden sense of openness

softening in places you thought were numb

feeling grounded for the first time

This is not emotional chaos —

this is the nervous system rewiring.

The body unloads what it no longer needs

when the spirit says,

“It’s safe to return.”

Rebuilding Embodied Safety: Gentle Practices

Here are simple somatic practices to help reintroduce safety into the body:

1. Hand-to-Body Grounding

Place one hand on your heart,

one on your lower belly.

Breathe slow.

Whisper:

“You are safe with me now.”

Let the body respond.

2. Pelvic Breathing

Inhale deeply into your lower abdomen.

Exhale longer than you inhale.

This signals safety to the nervous system

and gently opens the body to sensation again.

3. Vocalization

Humming. Sighing. Gentle sound.

Vibration moves stuck emotion out of the body.

4. Permission Statements

Say:

“I am allowed to feel.”

“I am allowed to want.”

“I am allowed to take up space.”

Notice what shifts.

5. Slow Sensory Exploration

Not sexual — just embodied.

Touch your arm, collarbone, or face with curiosity,

not shame.

Ask your body what feels nourishing.

Every small moment of presence

is a new neural pathway forming.

Your Body Is Not Behind — It Is Becoming

If you feel slow,

if you feel hesitant,

if you feel tension where you wanted ease,

please hear me:

Your body isn’t resisting you.

It is relearning you.

It is releasing years of religious fear.

It is melting layers of inherited shame.

It is thawing emotional winters no one saw.

It is coming alive after decades of being told to shut down.

This is not regression.

This is resurrection.

An Affirmation for Your Body Today

May your body feel the truth

your mind is still learning to believe.

May your breath widen the places shame once lived.

May your muscles release what purity culture taught them to hold.

May your nervous system unclench at the sound of your own yes.

May your pelvis soften in safety, not fear.

May your heart remember how to open.

And may you return —

slowly, gently, courageously —

to the body that has been waiting for you

to come home.

Religion tells you that you are broken. God reminds you that you were made whole.

Pre-order my latest book, Divorcing Religion, Finding God, and begin living life to the fullest as your most authentic self.