Embodied: Why Talk Therapy Didn’t Save Me—But Somatic Healing Did

I used to think healing meant not feeling. That if I wasn’t crying or breaking down, I was getting better. But what I didn’t know was that my body had been carrying everything I thought I’d left behind. This is how I found my way back to it.

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I used to think that healing was something you could talk your way into. I sat across from therapists, spilling my guts, hoping one day it would finally click and I’d feel free.

But it never did. I’d leave those sessions feeling more raw, more drained—like I had just ripped myself open with no one to stitch me back together. 
This isn’t to say that talk therapy was useless— It definitely helped to some degree, but looking back, it was no different than me sitting on a random couch every week, trauma-dumping for an hour. 

So I found other ways to cope.

Substances. Risky hookups. Getting lost in other people’s chaos so I wouldn’t have to sit with my own.

I’ve woken up in cars, in strangers’ homes, in situations I was lucky to survive.

And honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I wasn’t trying to die—but I wasn’t trying to live either. I just wanted to disappear without anyone noticing.

Then the pandemic hit. And suddenly, there was nowhere to go and no one to distract me.

Just me.

And that silence? It was what I imagined being locked in Solitary Confinement. 

So I drank more. Dissociated harder. Scrolled, slept, spiraled. I couldn’t sit with myself because I didn’t know how.

That stillness became both my breakdown… and my breakthrough.

At some point, I ended up at a sexual wellness convention in Texas to promote Dahlier. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I found myself in conversation with a bunch somatic sexologists who promoting their brands as well — We talked about trauma and how it lives in the body, not just the brain and how this can affect one’s relationship with sex and sexuality. 

That stayed with me.

I started reading and I immediately signed up for a somatic sexology class.

Not because I thought it would change my life—but because I was curious.

But it did change my life.

That class cracked me open in a way nothing else had.

I thought I was healing because I could intellectualize my emotions. I could name every trauma, explain every trigger. I knew the why behind every pattern.

But I didn’t even know you could feel emotions in your body.

I truly thought feelings were just thoughts.

So I didn’t understand why I was still having breakdowns, why I kept spiraling, why joy felt like a stranger and numbness felt like home.

I read The Body Keeps the Score and had to pause every few pages just to catch my breath.

It was like someone had finally put language to everything I had felt but never understood.

I realized my trauma wasn’t just something that happened to me—it was something I was still holding.

All the shutdowns, the exhaustion, the zoning out, the rage out of nowhere—those weren’t random.

They were my body’s way of begging to be heard.

Begging to be released.

Somatic therapy showed me that healing isn’t something you think your way into.

It’s something you feel your way through.

Breathwork. Movement. Body mapping.

And even kink—impact play, rope, surrender. These weren’t just pleasures.

They were ways I found myself again.

Ways to feel safely, without losing myself.

Ways to be touched without being destroyed.

Ways to stop floating outside of my skin and finally land back in it.

I used to think I was strong because I could hold it all in.

Now I know strength is the ability to feel without being consumed.

This is why I’m so passionate about my work as a somatic sexologist/life coach.

Because I know what it’s like to live on autopilot. To abandon your body because it’s never felt like a safe place to be.

And I also know what it feels like to come back home.

If talk therapy hasn’t helped you the way you hoped, it doesn’t mean you’re broken.

It might just mean your body is asking for a different kind of healing.

I’m not fully healed. I don’t think any of us ever are.

But I’m no longer disappearing.

I’m here. I’m feeling.

And for the first time in my life… I’m actually alive.

Affirmations for Coming Back to Your Body

• I trust the wisdom of my body.
• I am safe to feel.
• I do not need to earn rest, softness, or slowness.
• I no longer need to disappear to survive.
• My healing happens in the now—not the retelling.

Want to work with me or explore somatic healing for yourself?

DM me on Instagram @dahlier_wellness or reach out through my website.

Your body remembers. Let’s help it release what’s ready to be freed.