Why the Body Holds Trauma and How Somatic Healing Practices Release It
When you’ve lived through betrayal, you know it isn’t “just” about someone breaking trust. Betrayal is abuse. It is deception, manipulation, gaslighting, and abandonment all rolled into one. It leaves you questioning your worth, your instincts, your past, and even your sanity. And because betrayal cuts so deep, the body carries it just as much as the heart and mind.
When the person you trusted the most lies, cheats, or hides entire parts of themselves, your sense of safety is shattered. You may have spent years trying to survive in a relationship where you were dismissed, minimized, or made to feel like you were the problem. For many women, the betrayal wasn’t just the sexual acting out. It was the years of being emotionally abused, of being told they were controlling or crazy, while their partner continued in secrecy.
This is why betrayal trauma is so impactful to the body. It isn’t only about what you discovered. It is about what you endured. The constant hypervigilance. The nights you couldn’t sleep because something felt off but you didn’t have the proof. The way your body tensed every time your partner’s phone buzzed. The invisible weight of living in survival mode for so long.
And when betrayal leads to divorce, the pain doesn’t magically end. In fact, many women carry even more trauma because they may never know the full truth of their partner’s behaviors. That unknown is heavy. The body holds onto it because it doesn’t know how to resolve something that was never fully revealed.
The Body Remembers What the Mind Can’t Make Sense Of
Our nervous system is designed to protect us. When betrayal or abuse happens, your body registers the shock before your mind can even make sense of it. Muscles tighten. Breath shortens. Your chest feels like it’s caving in. These reactions are meant to keep you safe in the moment, but when there’s no safe resolution, the body stores them.
That’s why you might notice:
• Your heart races when your ex emails you
• Your stomach drops before a court date
• Your whole body tenses when you sense someone isn’t being honest
This is not weakness. It’s your nervous system replaying what it couldn’t resolve before.
Why Cognitive Work Alone Isn’t Enough
Talk therapy and cognitive tools are helpful for understanding what happened. They help you find language and clarity. But your body doesn’t speak in logic. It speaks in sensation. That’s why “thinking it through” doesn’t always help you move forward. Without addressing the body, trauma stays locked in place.
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How Somatic Healing Creates Real Change
Somatic practices help you work directly with your body and nervous system, giving you the chance to reset and release what’s been carried for too long. This isn’t about forcing yourself to move on. It’s about slowly teaching your body it is safe again.
Here are two practices I use with clients:
Brainspotting
This process helps uncover and release the subconscious roots of trauma that talking alone can’t reach. By using eye positions connected to deep brain and body processes, clients often experience relief from the looping thoughts and overwhelming body responses that kept them stuck.
The Alexander Technique (as taught by Martin Warner)
This is not the Alexander Technique you may have heard of in posture or performance circles. The way I have been trained, under Martin Warner, is grounded in the science of Deep Brain Reorienting (developed by Dr. Frank Corrigan). This approach recognizes that shock happens before the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response—and that this shock can get stuck in the body.
When shock remains unresolved, it creates a kind of “bracing” in the system—an inner tightening that shows up in posture, movement, and even the way you breathe. Martin Warner’s Alexander work helps release this shock residue by bringing awareness to these tension patterns and guiding the body back into balance. As your body unwinds, the nervous system resets, and you begin to feel grounded, present, and safe again.
Both practices honor that trauma is not just in your head. It is in your whole being.
Divorce, Betrayal, and the Body
Divorce after betrayal is not the same as other divorces. You are not only separating from a partner, but also from the illusions you once lived under, the reality you thought you had, and the hope of ever having all the answers. That unknown sits in your body like unfinished business.
Somatic healing doesn’t erase what happened. But it does give your body a way to stop carrying the past as if it is still happening now. It helps you reclaim agency in the one place you have power—your own body, your own nervous system, your own healing.
If you’ve ever wondered why you “can’t just move on,” remember this: your body isn’t betraying you. It has been protecting you. And when you work with your body through practices like Brainspotting and the Alexander Technique as taught by Martin Warner, deep healing becomes possible. Not because you forced yourself to forget, but because your whole self—mind, body, and spirit—finally had a chance to release what it was never meant to carry forever.
I’d love to support you in your healing.
XO,
Amie Woolsey
Certified Brainspotting Practitioner,
CPC, PCC, APSATS-CPC
Book your consultation today 702-277-9145
