Have you ever noticed how the same situation can feel completely different depending on the day?

Your work.
A relationship.
Home chores.
Exercise.

One day, it feels expansive. People seem kind. Everything flows.
Another day, it feels heavy, irritating, exhausting, hard, or unsafe.
It can feel as if the situation itself has changed.

But the truth is, it hasn’t.
You have.

This quote by spiritual teacher and author Eknath Easwaran, from his introduction to the Bhagavad Gita, captures this beautifully:

“We never really encounter the world; all we experience is our own nervous system.”

This simple sentence holds something profound about healing.

Our nervous system is the filter through which we see, feel, and experience reality and everything in it.

When the nervous system is calm, life feels more open and possible. We are more tolerant. Things worry us less.

When the nervous system is in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, life can feel dangerous, chaotic, exhausting, stressful, or hopeless, even when nothing externally has changed.
 

The Lens That Shapes Our Reality

So much of our suffering comes from trying to fix what is “out there”, other people, situations, or the future, without realising that what we are actually reacting to is what we are feeling inside our own body. 

When the nervous system is dysregulated:

• Thoughts race. We catastrophise and spiral.
• Emotions surge and hijack us, or we feel shut down and stuck.
• The world feels like too much. We may feel exhausted, overwhelmed, or chronically stressed. 

When the nervous system is regulated:

• We can think more clearly and access creativity, perspective, and problem solving.
• We feel more connected to ourselves and others.
• Life feels safer. There is more hope and possibility.

This is why mindset work alone often does not stick.
The mind cannot fully believe what the body does not yet feel is true.

 HAVE YOU GOT THE ULTIMATE TRAUMA THERAPY CHECKLIST YET??--

A Story of Transformation

A client I will call Sarah once said to me,

“I understand my triggers, but I just can’t stop reacting and lashing out.”

She had spent years trying to manage her anxiety and uncomfortable emotions through thinking, talking about it, and coping strategies. Yet her body would still flood with panic the moment she felt unsafe.

In our sessions, we began by slowing down and tuning inward. We listened to the somatic, sensory language of her body rather than the story of her mind. We followed the symptoms as a thread into the unconscious root cause.

At first, she could only sense a tightness in her chest. Then came waves of heat, trembling, and grief connected to a childhood experience that had been waiting decades to be met, seen, and felt.

Meeting this as a well resourced and supported adult, her body was able to complete old survival responses. Something subtle, but powerful, shifted.

The same situations that once felt threatening now felt neutral.
Her world had not changed.
Her nervous system had.

Why This Matters

When we understand that we are not experiencing “life” itself, but our nervous system’s filter of life, healing becomes both simpler and more compassionate.

We stop judging ourselves for our reactions.

We begin to recognise them as intelligent responses that once kept us safe.

Through embodied emotional processing, we learn how to feel safely again, and to feel safe while feeling. This allows the body to gently release the emotional baggage it has been carrying, so we can experience the world through a calmer, clearer, friendlier lens.

This work is not about being calm all the time.

It is about building capacity, the ability to stay present with whatever arises.
It is about learning how to care for ourselves and work with our emotions, rather than being derailed by them.

This is what builds true resilience. Staying present with life, rather than avoiding it or becoming overwhelmed by it.

Lived Experience and Embodied Healing

As a somatic therapy and energy healing practitioner, I first came to Embodied Processing through my own lived experience.

When we do not know how to properly process and work with our emotions, the unprocessed material builds up. It becomes charged patterns, compulsions, addictions and triggers that can derail relationships, health, and life.

Learning how to be present in my body and my life was a complete game changer. It taught me genuine emotional and nervous system self regulation, and supported deep emotional recovery and growth.

Taking an embodied, gentle approach held me steadily and compassionately through immense personal healing and transformation.

By learning about nervous system states, how to recognise them, move between them, and work with them, we move from being an unconscious passenger on an emotional rollercoaster, to becoming more intentional and skilful in our behaviours and reactions.

This is what emotional sovereignty looks like.
Not controlling emotions, but no longer being controlled by them.
Being able to surf the waves, rather than trying to analyse them or pretend they do not exist.

As the nervous system settles and capacity grows, many people also find they rely less on external coping strategies to manage how they feel.

This can include over reliance on wine, food, screens, distraction, people, or constant stimulation.

When the body learns how to process and regulate from the inside, the need to escape, numb, ignore, or override emotional experience naturally softens.

Embodied Processing is deeply empowering. It supports strength, stability, groundedness, and emotional power. Allowing us to meet life from a baseline of presence and inner steadiness.

This work happens at the root cause level, deep in the unconscious, and supports lasting nervous system healing and re-wiring.

Because the nervous system runs through every organ and system of the body, chronic dysregulation often shows up not only emotionally, but physically.

Many people spend much of their lives dysregulated, believing their distress is caused by external circumstances, without realising how much is being shaped internally by their nervous system state, and unprocessed emotional load.

Through the body, we can access this awareness and a framework to work with it.

The body speaks a different language than the mind. A sensory, somatic language. One that is often far wiser than our thinking mind.

This work is about remembering and restoring our relationship with that language and our body. Gently. Safely. Compassionately.

It is profound to witness what can be accessed and resolved through the innate wisdom of the body. This approach supports deep emotional recovery and growth, from dysfunctional adaptations and survival patterns, to a return to true nature and a more settled baseline of emotional wellbeing.

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An Invitation

When you heal and re-wire your nervous system, you change your experience of the world.

If you are tired of feeling overwhelmed, stuck in old patterns, or ruled by emotional reactions, somatic healing can help shift what talking, thinking, analysing, or coping strategies often cannot.

We work with the body to access and release unconscious survival stress, trauma symptoms, and emotional baggage that keeps you stuck.

If you are ready to:
• feel calmer and more grounded
• learn and practice healthy ways to process emotions
• stop spiralling or getting hijacked and derailed
• stop hitting walls when trying to make change
• break old cycles
• experience easier, healthier relationships
• and finally feel better inside yourself

I would love to support you.

Send me an email or DM, or follow along for somatic tools you can use in daily life.

[email protected]
facebook.com/Justine.somatichealing
@justine.somatichealing
substack.com/@justinelloyd

🌿 Send me an email or DM
🌿 Or follow along for somatic tools you can use in daily life:
📧 [email protected]
📘 facebook.com/Justine.somatichealing
📸 @justine.somatichealing
📰 substack.com/@justinelloyd
 

Sources and Influences

This work is informed by lived experience, clinical practice, and established research in trauma informed and body based healing approaches, including:
• Polyvagal Theory and autonomic nervous system research
• Somatic psychology and body based trauma therapies
• Neuroscience informed trauma research
• Embodied Processing Training Levels 1 and 2 through The Centre for Healing
• Contemplative and mind body traditions that recognise the nervous system as the lens of perception, including the teachings of Eknath Easwaran

Most importantly, this understanding has been shaped through years of personal healing and direct work with clients, where the body consistently reveals what the mind alone cannot resolve.

Explore our courses and trainings at The Centre for Healing HERE