The Body Keeps the Score - and Then Breaks It Open
This morning I bawled my eyes out. The kind of body-shaking, earth-shattering sobbing that feels like you're purging years of pain. Why? Let’s get into it. CW: bullying.
The Tension I Just Can’t Shake
For about a year now, I’ve carried a tightness in my shoulders that never really lets up. I didn’t even notice it until last summer, when a friend - training to be an RMT - put his hands on my back, did a few massage techniques, and told me to relax.
I said I was relaxed.
He laughed gently and told me, “No, you’re really not.”
Apparently, my shoulders felt like I was bracing for an impact 24/7. He encouraged me to start noticing the tension and trying to release it when I could.
The very next day, I caught myself tensing at my desk. I consciously relaxed - and my shoulders felt like they dropped 50 feet. (Okay, not really, but you get the picture.)
Since then, especially during flares of my (still undiagnosed, very somatic) chronic illness, my shoulder tension has had me in a chokehold. It’s like being pulled inward by invisible wires. Like a rubber band stretched too tight. Every day, I have to remind myself to relax my body - five times minimum. But no matter what, I haven’t been able to break through the core of it. Until this morning, when something clicked.
Over the last week, I’ve been navigating a heavy, murky feeling - the feeling of being unwanted. It’s been hard to shake. The kind of insecurity that spirals into “no one will ever love me” territory. This morning, I woke up with that cloud still hanging overhead. So I turned to a somatic meditation I’ve used before for emotional release. The last time I did it, I cried. (Spoiler alert: I cried again.)
The Meditation That Opened the Floodgates
The practice began with self-havening - a soothing, limbic system-regulating technique involving three points of touch:
Rubbing your palms together (I instinctively do this in circular motions)
Crossing your arms and gently stroking from shoulders to elbows
Touching your face - forehead, cheeks, or wherever feels natural
This tells your nervous system: you’re safe.
Then comes the mental imagery. The practitioner asks you to label the emotion you’re feeling, and describe it:
Where does it live in your body?
What colour is it?
How does it move?
Today, my emotion lived in my shoulders. It was deep brown. It felt like a crescent-shaped weighted blanket curled into me. Still. Heavy.
The next part was powerful. You’re asked to become the emotion and speak from it:
“What it’s like to be me is…”
What’s really bothering me deep down is…
“What I believe about the world is…”
My answers?
“Lonely and unwanted.”
“I feel like I’m going to be alone forever.”
“No one will ever want or love me.”
And then, somewhere between those prompts, it hit me: This wasn’t just a passing insecurity. This was my inner child crying out.
The Epiphany: Childhood Bullying
Suddenly, it hit me. I was bullied as a child. Those memories don’t come to me often as an adult and I’d buried it so deep, I forgot.
I even had crushes on some of my bullies, which adds a cute little layer of psychological chaos, right?
When this memory resurfaced, I broke down in full-body sobs. That tension in my shoulders? That was her. Little Iryna. Folding into herself. Protecting me. Carrying shame. Rejection. Trying to keep adult me safe by shutting the world out.
Releasing What Was Never Mine to Hold
Today, I uncovered another puzzle piece in my healing journey. The shoulder tension wasn’t random. It was emotional armour, protecting me from the plights of childhood I forgot existed. And now that I know, I can begin the work of unpacking it gently - under the guidance of more somatic meditations. Maybe even therapy. (Definitely therapy.)
I feel heavy. But also… I feel so relieved.
I want to wrap little Iryna in my arms and tell her: You are wanted. You are loved. You do not need to earn love through romantic validation. You don’t need to shrink to be safe.
There is so much love in this world - friendship, joy, creativity, softness, laughter - and it’s all here for you. You don’t have to carry this weight anymore. I’ve got you now.
Final Thoughts
Healing is messy. It isn’t always gentle or linear. Sometimes it starts with a tight shoulder, and ends with a long-forgotten sob from second grade.
But every time we listen to our bodies… Every time we sit with the feeling instead of running from it… We uncover more of who we were always meant to be.
And that’s something worth crying about.
XOXO
- Irene