Somatic Healing and Embodiment: How Intuitive Eating Supports Nervous System Health
Transforming our relationship with food doesn’t start in the mind or thoughts — it begins in the body. By deepening into embodiment, we cultivate a sense of trust, empowerment, and discernment, not only in our approach to eating but in how we live our lives.
Keep reading to learn how to deepen into embodiment and how this supports our relationship with food. Explore the importance of somatic healing, intuitive eating, and nervous system health in the context of embodiment, along with common factors that disrupt this process. Let’s dive in!
What is Embodiment?
To be embodied means to:
Connect with your felt sense and body's signals.
Experience an organized sensory system that promotes clarity and flow.
Trust and respond to your body's biological impulses and needs.
Move and inhabit your body with congruency — what you say and do align.
Discern when to engage with or disconnect from external influences.
In essence, embodiment creates a foundation of agency and clarity, enabling you to nourish yourself in ways that feel intuitive and aligned with your body's needs.
Supporting a sense of embodiment allows you to feel more yourself. When consciousness merges with physical form (i.e. the body), there is a feeling of coming home to yourself.
What Disrupts Embodiment?
Certain life experiences can disconnect us from our bodies, making the process of eating and nourishment feel challenging. Below are six key factors that interfere with our ability to stay embodied:
1. Birth Trauma
The birth process plays a foundational role in our embodiment. A traumatic birth can lead to developmental interruptions, affecting our ability to fully inhabit our bodies. Interwoven in this is generational and ancestral trauma that influences home life within the womb from conception through pregnancy.
2. Injury, Illness, or Chronic Pain
When the body feels unsafe due to internal threats like pain, injury or illness, inhabiting the body can become distressing. This disconnect makes it harder to trust and care for our vessel.
3. Physical Safety Risks
External threats, whether real or perceived, activate the autonomic nervous system into hyperarousal or hypoarousal.
Acute trauma, in the form of a boundary violation, often causes dissociation as a survival mechanism.
Pervasive external threats, such as toxic relationships or societal pressures (e.g., diet culture), can result in chronic disembodiment.
4. Attachment Injuries & Early Developmental Trauma
When caregivers provide inconsistent or misattuned attachment experiences, we may hold back parts of ourselves to avoid rejection or abandonment. This leads to dysregulation and a diminished sense of embodiment.
5. Sensory Processing Issues
Sensory processing challenges can disrupt our ability to feel connected to our bodies. These issues may stem from:
Birth trauma or early developmental trauma.
High levels of energetic sensitivity, common among those with eating disorders.
Learning to work with these sensitivities (as superpowers!) can support deeper embodiment and healing.
6. Gender Dysphoria
For individuals whose bodies do not align with their gender identity, the disconnect can impact their ability to feel fully embodied. The body may not feel like a safe or affirming space to inhabit.
How Embodiment Supports Intuitive Eating
As we deepen into embodiment, we naturally strengthen our ability to eat intuitively. When we are connected to our felt sense, we can discern:
How to hear and honour our hunger and fullness cues.
What nourishment our body needs.
What food preferences we like and dislike.
When to eat, rest, or move.
Embodiment fosters nervous system regulation, which is essential for normative eating, and digesting food and life experiences.
Reflective Questions for Embodiment Practice
What does “embodiment” mean to you?
How do you recognize when someone is embodied?
What practices or environments help you feel more connected to your body?
Practical Tips for Deepening Into Embodiment
Engage in Somatic Practices: Yoga, mindful movement, or body scans can help connect you to your felt sense.
Work with Your Nervous System: Practices that support vagal toning and regulation like sounding, grounding exercises, or co-regulation with a safe person can promote nervous system health.
Explore Sensory Processing: Understand your sensory needs and integrate tools (like weighted blankets or specific textures) to support regulation.
Seek Safe Spaces: Surround yourself with environments and relationships that feel safe and affirming to your identity and needs.
By understanding and addressing the factors that disrupt embodiment, we can move closer to a state of balance, where food and nourishment feel natural and intuitive.
Transforming our relationship with food doesn't have happen in the mind or in our thoughts but it happens through the body.
Embodiment is not a destination but an ongoing practice — a journey of inhabiting your body with compassion, curiosity, and trust.
Photo by Jamie Brown on Unsplash