The process of embodied change

How do we move from feeling hopeless, burnt out and disconnected towards freedom, openness and fulfilment?

What if the healing you’re still searching for isn’t in doing more…
but in coming home to your body?

Many of the people I work with are high-functioning and self-aware. They’ve done the therapy, the journaling, the inner work. And yet, they still feel stuck in cycles of burnout, self-doubt, people pleasing, or a constant push to prove their worth.

They don’t need more tools.
They need a different kind of relationship with themselves.

That’s where the Process of Embodied Change begins.

It’s a cyclical, body-led path. A return to presence, nervous system safety, and deep, quiet trust in your own being. This process doesn’t just manage symptoms. It rewires the way we relate to ourselves and to life.

An invitation into presence, reconnection, and quiet transformation.

I want to share this process with you as a gentle map. Maybe it will help you locate yourself within your own unfolding.

What matters is this: Change is possible. Even when we don’t believe it. Even when a part of you thinks, “It’s part of my personality, this is how I’ll always be.”

I am living proof that we can indeed change.

One thing I’ve come to understand deeply:
The process of embodied change, this tender act of befriending the body, is both the method and the outcome. Because in this journey we learn to love the body, and through it ourself.

Let me share what I’ve learned by walking this path over the last 10 years...

Most of us begin in a place of disconnection and chronic overwhelm.

This is especially true for those of us who are always “holding it all together” while silently falling apart inside.

There may be stress, trauma, anxiety, burnout, emotional fatigue. A sense of being far from yourself, lost, depressed even and isolated. The nervous system is dysregulated and you might be battling constant intensity and even chaos.

So much of our modern life keeps us in chronic stress. Our nervous systems carry it. Our bodies reflect it. When we’re dysregulated, even simple decisions feel difficult.

Step One: Grounding and Safety

The first step is always this: to create a foundation of groundedness.
Not to “fix” anything but to gently return to safety. Without it, we cannot go deeper, at least not in a sustainable, nourishing way. In fact there is very little we can do!

So we can ask: What does groundedness feel like in my body? What does steadiness feel like? Can I touch it, even for a moment?

It might be placing a hand on your chest. Noticing your breath. Feeling your feet on the ground. Finding a sensation that says “I’m okay, right now.”

With practice, the contrast becomes more familiar. Stress and calm, tension and ease. And with time, we learn how to come back to ourselves again and again.

Step Two: Feeling & Releasing

From safety, something else becomes possible. We begin to feel what we’ve held inside. Emotions that we buried deep inside. Grief, anger, fear, begin to surface, not to overwhelm us, but to be witnessed and released.

This doesn’t mean diving into discomfort recklessly. We return to our breath. Our tools. Our groundedness - that’s why this step comes first!

Processing doesn’t only happen in the mind. The thoughts may loop endlessly, but the body holds a different truth. When we allow emotions to arise and stay with them safely, even for a few breaths, something begins to move.

And what moves, can transform.

In this phase, we stop treating the body like a problem. We begin to relate to it as a wise companion. We notice: my body is speaking to me. It asks for boundaries, for movement, for softness, for stillness.

We learn to trust that voice. And that trust changes everything!

Step Three: Reclaiming Our Place

As we learn to listen more closely, we begin to sense that something no longer feels right. As if one day our feet grew a size and none of our shoes fit us anymore.
Old roles, expectations, habits. The versions of ourselves we outgrew but still try to wear. This stage can feel disorienting, rageful or sometimes discouraging. But through embodiment, we gain a compass.

We can ask: What truly nourishes me? What relationships feel safe? Where am I betraying my truth?

We don’t need to force change. We simply notice, and start to choose differently.

This is where we begin to redefine boundaries, not as walls, but as our sacred space. We root into self-trust. We take up space, gently but fiercely. We allow ourselves to live in alignment with what truly supports us.

Step Four: Living from Within

We’ve done so much healing, cried, released, we can set better boundaries… but still… we’re not feeling quite right. Old sense of not-enoughness, constant doing and burning out keeps coming up. Maybe our growth platoed but we’re not there yet.

It’s so frustrating because there don’t seem to be an end to it. This is the time to start looking at something else.

Maybe the problem is not really with you!

This sense of not-enougness is often internalised societal and external voices that tell us what success looks like (not like us), that our worth is in doing and achieving and how we should be in order to deserve love. We can never quite catch up. But we can change this!

This step is what I call embodied liberation.

It’s a quiet return, again and again, to the truth of ourselves. A way of listening to the body as a loving guide. A source of pleasure, clarity, and deep knowing.

For me, this looked like (and still IS a work in progress), shedding layers of conditioning. Letting go of the shoulds, the roles I need to fulfil, the performance and pleasing others. The internalised societal demands of patriarchy and capitalism. Other people’s opinions. Instead learning to come home to how I really want to move, feel, and live.

Old perfectionism, self-doubt, criticism, constant burnout and rage fall away. We learn different way of being, that is focused on grounded presence.

And then, quietly, naturally, we begin to feel something else: Spaciousness. A sense of freedom not tied to external approval, but anchored in the body. And a deep degree of self-love. Joy.

And what I’ve found is this:
When we let the body lead, it leads us not just toward healing but toward joy. Aliveness. Wholeness.

The body wants to flourish. And when we listen, we do too.

This is the step that often surprises the most self-aware people. Even after doing so much healing, they still feel caught in old performance patterns. Embodied liberation is not about fixing what’s wrong but remembering what’s true.

Supporting Your Own Process

There are many paths to begin: somatic movement, nervous system regulation, yoga, embodied mindfulness. You don’t have to do them all. Start where you are. Choose what feels nourishing. Let your body guide the pace.

There’s a poem by Mary Oliver I return to often:

“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

If you feel like you’ve done all the healing and still don’t feel free, this path might be for you.

You can begin by exploring free practices on my YouTube channel or visit my website to see how we can work together.

And most of all, remember: Your body wants to support you. It wants to feel good. It wants to live well.

With care and deep trust in your path,
Aleksandra