This one tends to be the lightbulb moment for most people. Once you understand this, so much of how you've been feeling starts to make sense.

When something stressful happens — even everyday stress, not just big trauma — your body responds. Your nervous system activates. It floods your system with energy, your muscles brace, your breath shortens. Your body is getting ready to fight, flee, or freeze.

Now here's what most people don't realize. Your body has a built-in way to release that activation. Animals in the wild do it automatically — you've probably seen a dog shake itself off after something frightening. That shaking is the nervous system completing the stress cycle. Discharging the energy.

But us? We've been taught to stop it. We're in public, or it feels strange, or we were raised to hold it together. So we clench the jaw, hold the breath, go still. And the stress doesn't leave. It stays locked in the body. It accumulates. Over months, over years.

Somatic exercises work with that natural release mechanism. They create the conditions your body needs to finally complete the stress cycle. The shaking, the trembling, a deep sigh, sometimes tears — that's not a problem. That's your body doing exactly what it was designed to do. We're just making space for it.