“I Feel Like Me Again” | An embodied reflection on fragmentation, regulation, and the return to self

Hi. 👋 It's me, Jody. 😊 The author. ✍️

A friend and fellow somatic coach recently asked a beautiful question in her facebook group:

What does the statement “I feel like me again” feel like in your body?

As I read through the responses, I noticed something. Most of them described awareness. Identity. Confidence. Relief. They were thoughtful and honest — but they leaned heavily toward narrative. Toward interpretation.

Very few described sensation.

And that distinction matters.

Because I have known what it feels like to be fully at home in my body. And I have known what it feels like to lose her.

Before I Lost Myself

I knew who I was in my body when I was a sophomore in high school. I was a bit of an early bloomer, and by that time I had integrated thoroughly with my adolescent physique and the hormonal shifts that came with it. I wasn’t self-conscious. I wasn’t shrinking. I wasn’t trying to prove anything.

I was confident — but not cocky. Comfortable — but not performative.

I loved to dance and sing loudly. I’d bike ride and rollerblade all over town with my girlfriends. I was naturally athletic and could keep up with the boys because I always could. My body felt capable. Strong. Alive.

I climbed trees as high as they would hold me. I scaled fences. I did handstands under water just because I could. I laughed freely and rarely felt like crying.

My sense of fashion was my own. I didn’t chase trends — some would say I quietly set them among my peers without even trying. I was sensual by nature and deeply touch-oriented. Hugging, sitting close, holding hands — that was simply how I moved through the world.

Sexual curiosity and attraction were part of that autonomy. It wasn’t shameful to me. It wasn’t dramatic. It was developmental. Natural. Alive.

My body and I were on the same team.

The Fracture

That all shifted when I became pregnant at the beginning of my senior year of high school — immediately after I turned eighteen.

Emerging autonomy combined with an unplanned pregnancy at that age—especially when your family is initially anything but supportive—is almost indescribable. I lost all concept of who I was — especially physically. My confidence didn’t just waver. It dissolved.

I was uncomfortable in my skin. In my clothes. In my thoughts. In the way people looked at me. In the way they didn’t.

And yet, from the outside, I apparently held myself through it well. The same friend who asked the question this blog entry is about had witnessed me through it.

That’s the thing about high-functioning grief. It can look like strength.

But inside, something had fractured. And instead of asking what my body felt like, I learned to brace.

The Long Disappearance

For nearly two decades, I struggled to feel like myself again — not just physically, but existentially.

Many mothers talk about “losing themselves.” For some, motherhood fulfills their identity. It was the dream. The goal. The role they longed for.

For others, it can feel like a narrowing. A constriction. A slow erosion of autonomy.

I loved being a mom. Until I didn’t. Until my children began moving through their own adolescence — along with the continual strain of conflicting coparenting through shared custody and the COVID pandemic — I felt a complicated mixture of protectiveness, encouragement, pride, grief, fear, anxiety, anger, rage, confusion, hope, defeat, frustration, and resentment all at once.

I had conformed to them as children. I had conformed to my now ex-husband. I had conformed to my parents’ expectations. I had conformed to my friend group. I had conformed to helping care for my special needs older brother. I had conformed to the ideology of being a female business owner.

And in becoming all of these roles — mother, wife/ex-wife, daughter, friend, sister, massage therapist, entrepreneur — I fragmented.

Somewhere in the conforming, I stopped asking what my body felt like. I just kept functioning. I kept performing. I kept bracing.

The tension and stress created a cornucopia of symptoms and ailments that I tried to manage, power through, or intellectualize. But my body was keeping score. It was holding grief in my chest, stress in my digestion, tension in my posture, and a quiet withdrawal in my hormones.

And at some point, without fully realizing it, I stopped inhabiting myself altogether.

I functioned. I performed. I showed up.

But I wasn’t fully there.

That quiet departure — that subtle dissociation — eventually led to a breaking point.

The Agonizing Return

It wasn’t until these past few years — post-passing of my brother, post-divorce, post-children leaving my home, post-family/friend estrangements, post-COVID pandemic, post-prescription medications and their lingering side-effects — that I finally felt allowed to be me again.

And at first, it was agonizing.

I didn’t know who I was without those roles attached. Without being needed. Without all of the demands. Without navigating constant relational dynamics.

There was grief. Anger. Shame. Resentment. Rage. Regret. There were days of ugly crying that felt cellular — like something buried deep in my tissues was finally surfacing. It wasn’t just emotional processing. It was physiological unwinding.

It took time. Conscious effort. Physical willingness. Silence I didn’t want. Stillness I had avoided.

There was a tug-of-war between my cognition and my body. My mind wanted clarity. My body needed surrender.

Slowly — over years — the storm began to lift. Not because I forced it, but because I stopped fighting it.

What It Feels Like Now

Now that I’ve made it through the thick of it, it feels liberating.

And awkward.

And unfamiliar.

Sometimes it feels “wrong” — because it’s so different from the version of me that lived in obligation. But it also feels deeply, unmistakably right.

In my body, feeling like myself again — on most days — looks like this:

My breath has slowed and deepened on its own. My digestive system has stabilized — no more elimination diets. My hair stopped falling out. My skin is clearer. My posture is straighter. My resting-bitch-face is less prominent (if you know, you know). My joints aren't as stiff. The systemic inflammation that once felt constant has quietly decreased.

And my desire for sexual intimacy has slowly been making its way back — which tells me my hormones are regulating in ways no lab panel could fully capture.

I’ve experienced sexual intimacy from dysregulation — using it to soothe, to distract, to feel wanted. I’ve also experienced it from shutdown — avoiding it altogether as a way to stay safe.

Now, I experience it from regulation. From presence. From choice.

And that intimacy is held within my marriage.

My husband has witnessed me before motherhood, through it, and now on the other side of it. He has held space for me — and quite literally held me — through these past several years of unbecoming and becoming again. That steadiness has been crucial. There is something profoundly regulating about being seen across decades and still being chosen.

And here is the part that feels new: I want to be desired by him again. Not out of obligation. Not out of habit. But because I feel alive in my own skin. Because I’m not disappearing inside the act. Because I’m staying.

When intimacy comes from regulation, my body responds differently. My breath slows. My muscles soften. Connection feels deep instead of urgent or avoidant. There is no chasing. No bracing. No disappearing.

Just staying.

And here’s the part that feels both honest and humbling — I am a perimenopausal woman in my forties. My hormones are not static. My body is not fixed. This return to desire, this sense of inhabiting myself fully, is happening within a season that is already shifting.

There may come a time — as I move deeper into my crone years — when my body asks something different of me. When desire feels different. When identity shifts again.

And if that happens, I know now that it won’t mean I’ve lost myself.

It will mean I am evolving.

Because feeling like myself isn’t about clinging to a version of youth. It’s about staying in relationship with my body through every season.

Right now, this season feels alive. Warm. Present.

And I’m choosing to inhabit it fully.

So What is the Sensation?

“I feel like me again” isn’t a motivational phrase for me.

It isn’t mindset.

It isn’t affirmation.

It’s physiological.

It’s when my nervous system stops scanning for threat — when the subtle background hum of vigilance quiets. It’s when my ribcage expands without guarding, when my breath drops lower without me forcing it there.

It’s when my jaw unclenches and my shoulders stop hovering near my ears. When my abdomen feels warm instead of tight. When digestion moves without resistance. When my spine lengthens not out of discipline, but because it no longer needs to curl inward.

It’s when my body and my cognition stop fighting and begin cooperating.

It’s when I don’t feel the need to explain myself.

It’s when I’m not rehearsing conversations in my head.

It’s when I’m not scanning the room for how I’m being perceived.

It feels expansive in my chest — like there’s room for breath and feeling at the same time.

It feels light in my belly — not numb, not armored, but responsive.

It feels steady in my pelvis — grounded instead of gripping.

It feels like warmth under my skin instead of static.

It feels like inhabiting myself without apology.

Not performing.

Not compensating.

Not disappearing.

Just staying.

That’s what it feels like — in my body — to be myself again.

Regulation Under My Hands

I see this shift in my work, too.

There are moments during hands-on sessions — especially in motility work that gently addresses the nervous system and energetic holding patterns — when I can feel the body deciding something.

It isn’t dramatic. It isn’t forced.

It’s quiet.

Under my palms, tissue that once felt guarded begins to soften. The rhythm changes. The movement becomes less erratic and more coherent. There’s a subtle warmth where there was coolness before. Sometimes a pulse strengthens. Sometimes the breath deepens without me saying a word.

I can feel when a system begins to trust.

And when clients are willing, they feel it too. They’ll mention it mid-session — “Something just shifted.” Or afterward they’ll describe a sense of settling they can’t quite explain.

There’s a difference between tissue that is being worked on… and tissue that feels safe enough to respond.

When someone is ready — when their nervous system senses even a small pocket of safety — the body reorganizes itself in ways I could never force.

And here’s the part that has changed me most:

The more regulated I am, the more clearly I can feel that shift.

If I’m striving or trying to manufacture an outcome, the work feels dense. Effortful. Disconnected in a way that’s hard to describe but easy to sense.

But when I’m steady — when my own breath is slowed and my system is calm — something else happens.

The body responds.

Not because I made it move.

But because I met it where it was.

These realizations are why my practice has continued to shift and evolve over the years. I don’t refine my work because trends change. I refine it because I change. Because my understanding of safety, fragmentation, and regulation deepens in my own body first.

I can only guide people as far as I’ve been willing to go myself — and only as far as they’re willing to meet themselves.

This is why some people talk the entire time on the table.

And others finally exhale.

It isn’t about personality.

It’s about safety.

You can’t think your way into feeling like yourself again.

You regulate your way there.

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Before you keep reading, pause for a moment.

Let your shoulders drop slightly. Notice your jaw. Notice your breath without trying to change it.

Place one hand over your chest, if that feels natural.

Is there tightness there?

Is there space?

Does your ribcage feel guarded… or expansive?

You don’t have to fix anything.

Just notice.

____

So maybe the question isn’t only:

What does it feel like in your body?

Maybe it’s also:

Where do you feel it — literally?

And what softens when you do?

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This reflection was inspired by a question posed inside my friend Christine’s Facebook community, Authenticity through Shadow Work: Unravel Yourself Whole. She creates spaces that gently challenge people to think deeper, feel more honestly, and unravel the stories they’ve been carrying for years.

If conversations like this resonate with you, I encourage you to explore her work — both inside her online community and through her wellness space, Beyond Salt Spa, where she supports both men and women in restoration, nervous system regulation, and intentional self-care.

You can find her group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/986303769720263 (I'm an active participant and top contributor)

And learn more about her offerings here: https://www.facebook.com/TheIntuitiveUnraveling and here: https://www.beyondsaltspa.com

Spaces that invite people back into their bodies are worth sharing.

And worth entering. 🤍

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