Your body knows before you do - using body wisdom to support difficult conversations
For anyone with a conversation they have been putting off.
The Conversation That Went Wrong
Recently, I found myself hooked into a political argument at the pub. Someone expressed views I found distressing, and almost immediately, my awareness went out of the window. The sudden feeling of being unsafe had me holding my breath and feeling spaced out, before moving straight into fight preparation.
I have spent years in embodiment practice, working consciously with physical sensations and body awareness. I teach people how to re-regulate their autonomic nervous system, the network that manages our involuntary stress and survival responses, so they can communicate from a grounded place. Yet here I was, reacting with emotional impulsivity and waiting impatiently to speak, stuck in hyperarousal.
Sharing and Taking Up Space: Why We Shrink, and How to Stop
For anyone who has learned to make themselves small, quiet, or convenient.
The Tube, the pavement, and the art of squeezing In
If you travel on public transport in any major city, you already know the choreography.
You sit on the Tube or the bus, and the person next to you has their knees spread wide, claiming half of your seat alongside their own. You feel the familiar, automatic contraction: you pull your knees together, tuck your elbows against your ribs, and pull your bag onto your lap. You might let out a quiet sigh, but mostly you make yourself compact. You spend the rest of the journey carrying physical tension in your thighs, shoulders, and jaw, simply to avoid confrontation or unwanted physical contact.
You see the same dynamic on the pavement. A few years ago, several women documented playing a game dubbed ‘patriarchy chicken’: walking down a crowded street at a normal pace and refusing to automatically step aside for oncoming men. The result, almost universally, was repeated shoulder collisions.
On the surface, these seem like minor everyday irritations. But our physical posture is rarely just about etiquette. It is a direct reflection of how power, privilege, and social hierarchy are experienced in the body. How much physical and emotional space we feel entitled to occupy is learned long before we are conscious of the lesson.
Why certain bodies learn to shrink
Shrinking yourself might seem like a character flaw or a lack of confidence, but it is an intelligent, learned survival strategy.
Navigating personal and political grief in a time of chaos and change
For anyone dealing with personal or collective grief, and wondering where all the feelings are supposed to go.
The song and the slow glide
'I don't know if we were meant to carry so much grief in one body… Yet, we are not alone.'
These words are from a song by Alexandra/Ahlay Blakely that I have sung with others at song circles, protests, and community gatherings. Groups assemble to process sorrow that feels too vast, frightening, or unfathomable to hold in isolation. The song includes a section that is essentially a tuneful wail, created to reconnect us with the messy, loud, and physical reality of mourning.
Reclaiming ritual, authentic expression, and communal grieving can be a form of resistance to the legacy of Victorian Britain, where emotional repression and sanitised mourning rituals became the default expectation.
Embodied, Courageous Communication
For anyone who has frozen during a difficult conversation or felt their body lock up when trying to speak.
Reading the warning at the base of the skull
Most of us develop protective habits against feeling unsafe long before we realise we are doing so.
In somatic practice, this is often described as body armour: holding chronic tension in the musculature as a physical shield against distress, long after the immediate threat has passed. When I began working with a practitioner to support my recovery, learning to track these sensations was eye-opening. By paying attention to what my body was doing when I felt exposed, I began to see the connection between physical sensation, emotion, and action.
I learned, for instance, that whenever I feel vulnerable or anticipate conflict, the muscles at the base of my skull tend to shudder or vibrate. It is not a subtle cue. It has shown up during tense meetings, difficult personal conversations, and job interviews.