I wanted to write about the mind-body connection in this blog and explore the idea that the body holds trauma. Instead, it became shaped by recent lessons in letting go.

In my quest for a deeper understanding of myself and my clients, I have turned to the work of Peter Levine, Bessel van der Kolk, Stephen Porges and my favourite; Gabor Maté. These clinicians and writers have helped bring wider awareness to the profound effects of trauma on the body, mind and nervous system.

For me, their work brought a sense of relief, as I recognised myself in their words. Maybe there was nothing wrong with me after all. My coping mechanisms and behaviours began to make sense.

As someone who teaches meditation and supports people in coming into their bodies through yin yoga and mindful movement, I have often been hard on myself during periods of stress — times when I seem to have no control over my reactions and my mind spirals into fear-fuelled panic or anxiety. Surely, I should not be like this anymore. After all the years I have spent meditating, practising yoga and mindfulness, and creating safe spaces for my clients to reconnect with themselves through bodywork, I felt I should no longer become so detached from my body, so ungrounded or fearful.

As a teenager, when I was still a practising Catholic, a beautiful friend of mine — a radical priest and father figure — used to say, “Let go and let God.” Without analysing the phrase too deeply, it gave me a sense of being held, a feeling that I did not have to manage everything alone.

During my recent experience of burnout, recovery and life changes, the words “Let go and trust” came to me, almost as if they were not my own thoughts. They continue to return quietly as I navigate new ways of being, reminding me of Bert’s words all those years ago. Bert was shockingly taken from this world in a house fire in 2000, and my fragile world completely crumbled. I had no choice but to let him go — but how could I trust? Trust what? Trust who?

Letting Go

It began at the end of 2025, with letting go of my habitual way of working. Previously, I would fit in clients for massage treatments whenever they requested them, as much as possible. I often thought what a wonderful job I had — helping people relax and, ultimately, leave feeling better than when they arrived.

That is not to say bodywork and yoga is all light and love. I also hold a space where people can feel their sadness, grief and pain. I offer a safe space where people can cry and begin to recognise what they are holding emotionally, and how this can manifest mentally and physically. I believe that healing, and even spirituality, involves connecting with our shadows, not simply bypassing or transcending the darkness that exists. This work can be energetically taxing.

I love the depth of connection my work gives me. I have always felt grateful that, even though my hours were shaped by my clients’ requests, I could choose when and how I worked. Yet this mental notion of freedom — work that I loved, done on my own terms — was quietly overriding the needs of my body. It obscured the fact that my eagerness to be available for others was, in part, fear-driven.

If I said no to work, I feared not earning enough to support myself and my two daughters.

Part of my burnout experience was having no desire to be around people. I was empty; I had nothing to give. The thought that it might be time to stop massaging brought both relief and fear. What would I do instead? How could I fit myself back into a typical nine-to-five job, working for someone else, after so many years of working for myself in such a meaningful way?

I started by taking a couple of weeks off, which was clearly not enough. I was still exhausted.

Let go and trust.

Receiving Support.

A dear friend — another father figure in my life — and his wife deposited a thousand pounds into my account. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw my bank balance had jumped from near zero to an amount that would cover my next month’s rent. Uncomfortably, but deeply gratefully, I accepted this generous support.

The following month, another unexpected gift of the same amount was deposited into my account by someone else. Again, uncomfortably, I accepted it and took it as a sign that I was being supported to do the healing my body was asking of me.

These were not the only ways in which I received generosity, love and care during that time, and I remain deeply grateful for all I was given.

As the weeks turned into months, I began to feel more grounded and connected to my body again. I had moments of insight and clarity. I observed my tendency to think in extremes — either/or — and realised there was another way.

I began to design a new working week in which I would mainly offer massage on just two set days. No longer travelling to people’s homes became non-negotiable. The physical burden of carrying everything and giving so much of myself had become too high a price to pay.

I was also close to completing my life coaching and mind-body practitioner qualifications, although during my time off I had been unable to do any of the coursework; my brain felt like it had shut down. Once I returned to work at the beginning of this year, I realised I could create space to complete this training and begin shaping a new way of working with people — one that would support them without adding strain to my own weary body.

It meant risking the loss of clients. It meant possibly earning less money. It meant I will have to step out of my comfort zone.

Let go and trust.

More Letting Go

Just before I tentatively returned to work in this new way, my car broke down and presented another dilemma. After not working for so long, I could not afford the repairs needed to keep it. I left it parked for a couple of weeks while reflecting on my options. I could borrow money to fix it, or I could let it go.

No longer travelling to people’s homes meant I did not need my car for work, as I could walk to the studio twice a week. The few housebound people I still offered reflexology to each month could be reached by borrowing my mum’s car.

Since the age of twenty-one, my car had been another symbol of personal freedom.

Let go and trust.

The car, along with other well-loved household items that stopped working, were not replaced. I adapted and began to feel a surprising freedom in letting go of material possessions and old ways of being.

Just as I began to trust this process, another bombshell came: our landlord was selling the house we had rented for the last nine years.

Nine years earlier, we had also been forced to move because a landlord was selling. At that time, dear friends offered us their rented property, which became our sanctuary. For all those years, we felt safe there, cared for and looked after.

The ground fell from beneath me when I received the news. I knew how difficult the decision to sell must have been for them, but my financial situation was worse than ever. The private rental sector is competitive and brutal. I was terrified.

All notions of letting go and trusting disappeared as I despaired about what would happen to us.

After the initial panic, I went into problem-solving mode and tried to think of anyone I knew who might have a property to rent. A client came to mind, so I texted him to ask whether he had anything available.

He called me straight away. None of his rental properties were free. However, the ground floor of his previous family home was currently being used as storage space, and he said he would happily clear it for us to move into.

I wept with relief, not caring what it looked like. He felt like a guardian angel.

I reflected on how, despite struggling as a single parent for many years, I had somehow always been looked after. I could not have been more grateful.

Why Could I Still Not Trust?

If I had been supported through financial and emotional struggles before, why did my body still react as though disaster was inevitable?

This is where I began to understand that my nervous system held a very different story from my thinking mind.

Despite feeling grateful for the new home we had and the support we received, I felt intense emotional dysregulation. Feelings of anger, fear and grief overwhelmed me at times.

I was excited by the new beginnings that were opening up to me, yet I felt anxious and full of self-doubt.

These contradictions between my thoughts and my felt experience were confusing.

My default way of thinking brought harsh self-criticisms which only added to my difficulties in adjusting. With time, I was able to bring compassion and acceptance to my experiences.

By letting go of resistance to the physical and emotional discomfort, I gradually began to regulate through gentle mindfulness and connected breathing. Even my beloved meditation practice felt too uncomfortable to sit with for a time.

Eventually I could see that my reaction to what was happening was not weakness on my part, but instead a hyper-vigilant nervous system trying to keep me safe.

A nervous system that has lived through financial hardship, violence, loss and ongoing uncertainty can become highly sensitive to potential threat. Over time, the body learns to stay alert, in an attempt to predict danger and maintain safety. Although I knew intellectually that we were safe, that we had shelter and support, my nervous system still detected threat.

Through my perimenopausal exploration, I also understand that lower resistance to stress can be a key symptom, which heightened this intensely confusing response to my situation.

I realise that self-awareness and self-regulation through meditation and mindfulness do not mean we will no longer experience intense stress and emotional turmoil. Instead, they give us ways to respond to these experiences more compassionately and effectively when they arise.

Although it is widely recognised that our thoughts affect our physiology, positive affirmations alone cannot regulate an activated nervous system. I now understand through lived experience that we cannot simply think our way out of autonomic physiological responses.

Patience is a vital part of this process, a quality that has not come easily for me! When we are suffering, we want a quick fix. It seems to me that the body can take longer to catch up than the mind. It cannot be forced back into balance. It needs understanding and the right conditions to readjust.

For me, this has been to allow more space in my life. To let go of immediate plans and goals I had, so that my system no longer felt overwhelmed. This did not feel easy and I felt I was letting people down. I chose to let go and trust. To trust that all that needs to be done will be done, when the time is right. Trust, that feelings of calm and safety will return.

This experience has led me into deeper self-care, compassion and gratitude for my body. It has helped me trust my body’s responses by listening deeply to what it is telling me, and to trust the practices that help me return to balance. There is no predictable timeline to this process and it certainly was not linear for me.

The embodiment work I now find myself offering through holistic life coaching feels like a vital support for self-regulation and for meeting ourselves exactly where we are, rather than where we think we should be.

The Part of me Still Reaching for Certainty.

I was recently sitting in my new favourite spot overlooking the river, reflecting on the final part to this blog series. I was silently giving thanks to my body for not failing me in the work I had committed to that week. I mused on trusting.

It had been a day of heavy rainfall dispersed with brief outbursts of glorious sunshine. Each time I had to go outside, it happened to be during one of those sunlit moments. The air was fresh and delightfully inviting and made me smile in wonder.

As I sat, I looked at my phone and saw there was a new Ram Dass release on Substack titled The Part of You Still Reaching for Certainty, without thought, I opened it. I sighed in awe as his words described so poetically the recent teachings I had been receiving through my own experiences about letting go.

Ram Dass once said,

You can’t bargain, but you can trust.

…If I do enough,
I will not have to feel helpless.

If I hold enough,
I will not have to grieve.

If I stay prepared,
I will not be surprised by pain.

This is not a flaw.

It is a survival prayer.

A prayer the nervous system learned
before it had better words…

I smiled as his words seemed to sing my own story back to me, and I whispered thank you, thank you, thank you.

Read the full Ram Dass Post

Thank you for your presence.