The Day You Stopped Living in Your Body (And How to Move Back In)
Estimated Read Time: 7 minutes
You're sitting in a meeting and realize you have no idea what your body feels like right now. Are you hungry? Tense? Comfortable? You'd have to really think about it to know.
Or you look down at a bruise on your leg and have no memory of how it got there. You bump into things. You realize hours later that you've been holding your breath.
This disconnection from your body isn't carelessness. It's actually one of the most brilliant survival strategies your nervous system has. When being in your body meant feeling unbearable things, you learned to leave.
The problem is, you might still be gone.
What Dissociation Actually Feels Like
Dissociation is a spectrum. On one end is daydreaming. On the other end is complete disconnection from reality. Most trauma survivors live somewhere in the middle.
It might look like:
Going through your day on autopilot, barely present
Not remembering parts of conversations you just had
Feeling like you're watching your life from outside your body
Numbness where feelings should be
Time passing without awareness of it
Looking in the mirror and not quite recognizing yourself
Physical sensations feeling distant or absent
If you experienced sexual assault or domestic violence, dissociation might have saved your life. When you couldn't physically escape, you escaped mentally. Your consciousness went somewhere else while your body endured.
That was smart. Adaptive. Necessary.
But now you're safe, and you're still gone. Your body is still waiting for you to come home.
The Feet-on-Floor Reset
This is the simplest grounding technique, but don't underestimate it. When you notice you've drifted away from your body, this brings you back fast.
Here's what to do:
Stop whatever you're doing. Plant both feet flat on the floor.
Press your feet down like you're trying to push through the floor. Notice the pressure. Notice the texture of your socks or shoes against your skin. Notice the temperature.
Do this for 30 seconds. Sometimes that's all you need to drop back into your body.
Keep this tool in your pocket for:
When you catch yourself dissociating during a conversation
During triggering situations where you need to stay present
In the morning when you wake up feeling disconnected
Before important moments where you need to be fully there
The Five Senses Embodiment Practice
Unlike the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique (which helps with anxiety), this practice is specifically designed to rebuild your relationship with sensory experience in your body.
Do this for 5 minutes daily, preferably in the same place and time:
Sight: Pick something near you. Really look at it. Notice colors, textures, shadows, shapes. Describe it out loud in detail.
Touch: Find something nearby with an interesting texture. Touch it slowly. Is it smooth? Rough? Cool? Warm? Move your fingers across it deliberately.
Sound: Close your eyes. Listen for the quietest sound you can hear. Then the loudest. Then something in between. Name each one.
Smell: Find something to smell. A candle, your coffee, your sleeve, hand lotion. Breathe it in slowly. Notice how the scent changes as you keep smelling it.
Taste: Put something small in your mouth. A raisin, a chocolate chip, a sip of tea. Don't swallow immediately. Notice the taste, texture, temperature.
The point isn't to enjoy these sensations (though you might). The point is to practice paying attention to physical experience. To prove to yourself that it's safe to be in your body and notice things.
Pendulation: Touching the Hard Stuff Safely
One reason you stay disconnected is because you're afraid that if you drop back into your body, you'll be overwhelmed by difficult sensations or emotions.
Pendulation is a technique from somatic experiencing that lets you practice moving between uncomfortable sensations and comfortable ones. You don't have to stay in the hard stuff. You learn to touch it and move away.
Here's how:
Sit comfortably. Find a place in your body that feels neutral or pleasant. Maybe your hands feel okay. Maybe your feet. Somewhere that doesn't hurt or feel scary.
Notice that pleasant or neutral sensation for 20-30 seconds. Describe it to yourself. "My hands feel warm. There's a tingling in my palms."
Now gently shift your attention to a place that holds discomfort. Maybe tension in your shoulders. Tightness in your chest. Don't go to the most intense place. Pick something manageable.
Notice that sensation for 10-15 seconds. Just notice. You don't have to fix it or understand it.
Now shift back to the pleasant or neutral place. Stay there for 30 seconds.
Repeat this pendulation 3-4 times. Uncomfortable place, then back to comfortable place.
This teaches your nervous system that you can feel difficult things without getting stuck there. That you have control. That your body isn't just a place of pain.
The Humming Practice for Vagal Tone
Your vagus nerve is the main highway between your brain and body. When it's working well, you feel present, connected, and able to regulate your emotions. Trauma can disrupt vagal tone, which contributes to that disconnected feeling.
Humming stimulates the vagus nerve and helps rebuild that brain-body connection.
Try this:
Sit comfortably with your mouth closed. Take a normal breath in through your nose.
As you exhale, hum. Any pitch, any note. Feel the vibration in your throat, chest, and face.
Do this for 5-10 breaths.
Notice how your body feels during and after. Most people feel more present, more "in" their body.
Do this every morning. In your car. Before stressful situations. Whenever you notice you've floated away.
It sounds too simple to work. But vibration is one of the most direct ways to remind your body that you're here.
Proprioception Exercises: Knowing Where You Are in Space
Proprioception is your body's sense of where it is in physical space. Trauma survivors often have disrupted proprioception, which adds to that floaty, disconnected feeling.
These exercises rebuild that sense:
Wall push practice: Stand facing a wall, arm's length away. Place your palms on the wall. Push against the wall firmly for 10 seconds, then release. Feel your muscles engage. Feel the resistance. Repeat 5 times.
The heavy hands: Stand with your arms at your sides. Imagine your hands are extremely heavy, like they weigh 20 pounds each. Feel them pulling down. Stand like this for 30 seconds.
Heel-toe walking: Walk slowly, deliberately placing your heel down first, then rolling through to your toes. Feel every part of your foot make contact with the ground. Do this for 2 minutes.
These aren't weird exercises. They're physical ways of answering the question "Where am I?" When you know where you are, you can be there more fully.
The Reality Check List
Sometimes you need concrete proof that you're in the present moment, not in the past where the trauma happened.
Create a personal reality check list on your phone or a card in your wallet:
What year is it? How old am I? Where am I right now? Who is in my life now who loves me? What's different now than it was then?
When you're dissociating or feeling triggered, pull out this list. Answer each question out loud if you can.
This isn't about positive thinking. It's about giving your disoriented nervous system factual information about where and when you are.
Movement as a Bridge Back
Your body speaks the language of movement better than words. Sometimes the fastest way back into your body is to move it.
Options that work:
Dance: Put on one song and move however your body wants to move. Don't perform. Don't make it pretty. Just move.
Stretch: Do 5 minutes of gentle stretching, paying close attention to the sensations in your muscles.
Progressive walking: Start walking very slowly, then gradually increase your pace. Notice how the different speeds feel in your body.
Cold water: Splash cold water on your face or hold ice cubes in your hands. The shock of temperature brings you back fast.
The key is choosing movement that requires your attention. Repetitive, mindless movement (like scrolling while on a treadmill) won't help. You need movement that makes you pay attention to physical sensation.
The Window Gets Bigger
Here's what I need you to know: if you've spent years, maybe decades, living outside your body, coming back in will be uncomfortable at first.
You left for good reasons. Your body held feelings and sensations that were unbearable. Coming back means eventually feeling those things.
But here's what also happens: as you practice these techniques, your window of tolerance expands. You can feel more without being overwhelmed. You can be in your body for longer before you need to disconnect.
The goal isn't to never dissociate again. It's to have choice. To be able to stay present when you want to. To not lose hours of your day to disconnection.
Start with the technique that feels most doable. Maybe it's the feet-on-floor reset. Maybe it's humming. Do that one thing daily for a week and notice what shifts.
You deserve to live in your body. To feel your life as you're living it. To be here, fully, for the good moments and the hard ones.
Struggling to feel connected to your body after trauma? We specialize in somatic therapy for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence throughout Utah. Schedule a free consultation to explore body-based approaches to healing.