Why self-abandonment lives in the body, not just the mind
The body knows how to release what the mind has been holding. We just have to give it permission.
We can understand self-abandonment completely and still not be able to stop it. We can name the pattern, trace it back to its origins, journal about it, talk about it in therapy, set intentions to do better. Then we walk into a room with our parent, our partner, our boss, and the old override activates before we've had time to think. We comply. We shrink. We abandon ourselves again.
It’s not that we don’t understand it. We do. Fully. It’s our approach that needs to change. Self-abandonment doesn't just live in the mind. It lives in the body. And the body requires something different than insight to release it.
Self-abandonment is the pattern of overriding our own needs, feelings, and truth in order to stay safe, connected, or accepted. Most of the work we do to address it happens at the cognitive level. We understand the pattern. We recognize where it came from. We know, intellectually, that we're allowed to be ourselves.
Our nervous systems don't care what we know. It cares what it learned.
Why does understanding self-abandonment not make it stop?
The nervous system learned self-abandonment as a protective strategy. At some point, being ourselves felt threatening to our connection, to our safety, to our belonging. So the body developed a response: override the truth, shrink, comply, keep things smooth.
That learning is stored somatically in the tension we carry in our shoulders, the jaw we clench when we hold something back, the shallow breathing that comes when we're about to override ourselves, the chronic pain that has no clear physical cause.
Research on how the nervous system stores threat responses shows that the amygdala encodes emotional memory in ways that persist long after the original threat has passed. The prefrontal cortex (where our understanding lives) can update its assessment. The amygdala keeps sending the old signal.
This is why cognitive work alone has limits. We can think our way to understanding. We can't think our way to release.
What the body holds that the mind misses
I carried upper back pain for over two years. A hard layer of tension across my trapezius. Neck tension every waking moment. I tried everything: chiropractic, cupping, physical therapy, dry needling, acupuncture, strengthening, stretching, red light therapy, massage. Temporary relief at best. The holding pattern always returned.
Deep down I suspected it wasn't purely physical. There was no injury that caused it. It felt more like armor. Like my body was bracing for something.
I knew what it was protecting me from: the fear that speaking my truth would be met with rejection. The belief that my needs were too much. The learned pattern of making myself smaller so I wouldn't create discomfort for others.
I knew this intellectually. I had traced the pattern back to its origins. I understood the nervous system dynamics behind it. Yet the armor stayed.
Understanding the wound doesn't close it. The body needs something else.
What somatic release makes possible
The nervous system doesn't update through information. It updates through experience. It needs to feel, in the body, that the threat has passed. That it's safe to soften. That we can take up space and still be okay.
This is what somatic work makes possible. Not as an alternative to the cognitive work, but as the layer beneath it. When the body releases what it's been holding, the cognitive work finally has somewhere to land.
I built a practice I call Release & Claim. It came out of a coaching session with my own coach, months of research, and a growing conviction that the body was where the real work needed to happen. I did it alone in my apartment over 90 minutes. The wall in my shoulders came down. The pain that had persisted for two years reduced to remnants within hours.
I released the protection I no longer needed.
What is the Release & Claim practice?
Release & Claim is a somatic practice that moves through four stages. It's designed to help the nervous system release obsolete protection and claim a new way of being.
Here's how it works.
Stage 1: Reflection
Before anything physical happens, we get clear on what we're releasing and what we're claiming.
Write out what the tension in your body is protecting you from. Be specific. Not "I want to release fear" but "I'm protecting myself from the belief that my truth will cost me connection." Name the specific threat the protection is guarding against.
Then write what you want to claim instead. Write it as a truth you're ready to move into. "I am safe taking up space. My truth is welcome here. I no longer need to protect myself from belonging."
The reflection is preparation for the body work that follows. You're telling your nervous system what's about to happen.
Stage 2: Embodied release through movement
Before breath can go deep, the body needs to discharge what it's been holding at the surface. This is where movement comes in.
Through gentle stretching, movement, and full-body shaking, we activate the body's natural discharge mechanism. This is the same physiological process animals use instinctively after a threat passes—the shaking, the unwinding of stored activation. We're giving the nervous system permission to do what it was always designed to do.
This stage doesn't require skill or training. It requires willingness to let the body move without directing it. The mind steps back. The body leads. What releases here creates the conditions for the breath work that follows to go somewhere real.
Stage 3: Breathwork and emotional release
After the movement and shaking, we move into breathwork. Three rounds of deep, connected breathing with breath holds. This brings everything to the surface.
By the second round, I wanted to wail. So I did. Loud and hard and not pretty. No thinking. Just releasing. At the end, affirmations started coming up organically and confidently: "I no longer need to protect myself. My body no longer needs to protect me."
This stage is where the emotional content releases. The grief, the rage, the held breath of years of self-override. We're creating the conditions for what's already held to finally move.
Allow whatever comes. Don't direct it. Don't edit it. Let the body lead.
Stage 4: Integration
After the release, we integrate. This stage is as important as the others.
Lie on the floor for ten to fifteen minutes. Just be. Let the nervous system settle into the new state. Don't rush it.
Then write with your eyes closed. No looking, no controlling, no trying to make it coherent. Let whatever wants to come through arrive on the page. Then draw—no agenda, no skill required. Just movement.
The writing and drawing are somatic markers. They help the nervous system register: something shifted. This is who I am now.
Finally, if you have something physical to claim the new state—a bracelet, a ring, a stone, an object you put on deliberately—do that. Make it embodied. Make it real.
What this practice makes possible
Right after I did this practice, my upper back pain had improved significantly. My neck tension had reduced to what felt like remnants. When I reached my arms up to wash my hair in the shower, there was no pain. There was almost always pain.
I wasn't expecting that. I was trying to interrupt the pattern of self-abandonment at the level where it actually lives. The body responded by releasing what the mind had been unable to let go.
Days later, I watched the tension start to creep back in certain conditions—when I was typing for long hours, when I was in situations that historically triggered the old protection. That’s good data. It shows where the nervous system is still learning that safety is real, that the old protection is no longer needed.
Each time we notice the tension returning and soften deliberately, we're teaching the nervous system something new.
The practice isn't one session. It's a returning.
The missing link in most self-abandonment work
Most personal development work on self-abandonment addresses the story. The patterns, the origins, the beliefs. All of that matters. The cognitive layer is real and necessary.
What's missing is the somatic layer. If the body is still holding the protection, if the nervous system is still bracing for a threat that no longer exists, the cognitive work can only go so far. We'll understand ourselves beautifully and still fall back into the override when the pressure is on.
The body has to believe the threat is gone. Not just the mind.
Release & Claim is one way to help the body catch up to what the mind already knows. The first experience with it is powerful, but it’s not a one-time fix. It's a practice, a returning, a way of working with the body as an ally rather than an obstacle. After your first session, you’ll have the tools to continue using it.
Coaching helps us see the pattern and choose differently. Therapy helps us process the roots. Somatic work helps the nervous system release what understanding alone can't reach. All three have a place. This experience is the somatic piece.
If this resonates and you want support doing this work:
Release & Claim is available as a guided experience with Priscilla. You'll receive the full 90-minute experience with pre-session reflection guidance, real-time facilitation, and human witnessing through the release and claiming process. Learn more here.
Frequently asked questions
Why doesn't understanding self-abandonment make it stop?
Because self-abandonment is stored in the nervous system, not just in thought. The amygdala (the brain's threat-detection center) learned early that being ourselves was risky. It doesn't update based on what we now understand intellectually. It updates based on repeated embodied experience of safety. Cognitive work is necessary and has real limits. The body needs to feel the shift, not just understand it.
Is somatic work safe to do alone?
Gentle somatic practices like breathwork and body awareness are generally accessible for most people. It is considered safe for most healthy adults but is best approached carefully if you have a history of trauma, PTSD, or significant nervous system dysregulation. In those cases, working with a trained practitioner is worth doing. The Release & Claim practice as described here is designed for personal development work, not therapeutic treatment. If you have medical or psychiatric concerns, consult a healthcare provider before beginning.
What does it mean to "claim" something somatically?
Most of us have experienced the gap between knowing something is true and feeling it in the body. We can know "I am worthy of taking up space" while our shoulders are still hunched, our voice still quieted, our hands still gripping. Claiming something somatically means anchoring the new truth in the body—through breath, through movement, through a physical marker like deliberately putting on a bracelet that says “claim” or placing a hand on the heart. The body learns through felt experience. It gives the nervous system a concrete moment to register: this is who I am now.
