The Body Remembers: How the Mind-Body Connection Paves the Way for Healing

The mind-body connection, still much overlooked in medicine, has only recently become more known through the work of doctors like Bessel van der Kolk and Gabor Maté. Building on early theories by Charles Darwin, they’ve shown how emotions are not just psychological experiences but physical survival mechanisms, and how our bodies don’t just signal danger in the moment; they store that information for the future.

At the center of the mind-body connection lies the vagus nerve—a two-way communication

highway linking the brain, heart, and gut. This intricate network allows our bodies to alert the

brain of potential danger and, in turn, lets the brain send signals that either calm or heighten our state of alertness. The challenge is that both physical pain and intense emotion can activate the same danger pathways, depending on what the body has learned from past experiences.

Darwin described emotions as essential to survival because they are physical sensations that inspire action. Our brains process those sensations and move us to action quickly, often relying on stored memories to determine how to respond.

Imagine, you’re hiking through a lush forest in northern Minnesota. It’s a perfect day and you feel grounded, peaceful, and deeply connected to nature. Suddenly, a sharp cracking noise echoes from the distance. Your pupils dilate, your muscles tense, and you scan the trees for signs of movement. Seeing nothing, you exhale and keep walking. Then, a rustle sounds much closer. Your heart races, adrenaline surges to your hands and feet, and you freeze—locking eyes with a timber wolf through the branches.

In that moment, everything else fades away. Your brain is fully engaged in survival mode, weighing whether to fight or run. Just then, a noisy group of hikers rounds the bend, laughing and playing music. Startled, the wolf retreats—and so do you.

The next time you’re on that trail, you hear a branch snap and start running, before you even stop to think.

That’s your body remembering. It’s what is called a trauma response—a reflex rooted in survival that bypasses conscious reasoning. Even if your mind later insists, “Nothing really happened,” your body still holds the imprint of that danger.

The same process happens with emotional experiences. Someone who was scolded as a child for leaving a mess might, years later, feel a rush of shame or panic when asked to clean up. Most of us have something that “sets us off”—a phrase, a tone, or even a look—that brings up a strong emotional reaction before we can make sense of it.

Often, we try to talk ourselves out of those reactions. “It’s not that big of a deal,” we say, attempting to reason away the emotion. But when we silence the body’s signals long enough, we start to lose connection with what they’re trying to tell us. We might feel numb, detached, or unable to describe what we’re feeling. Emotions become ideas instead of sensations. They seem like something we think about but can’t truly feel.

That disconnection can seem protective at first, but the body keeps trying to communicate. When we don’t listen, it often finds another way to speak. Sometimes that language shows up as chronic pain, autoimmune issues, exhaustion, digestive problems, migraines, or frequent illness. Medicine can often treat and cure the physical symptoms, and true healing begins when we reconnect the mind and body.

In his book, The Myth of Normal, Dr. Gabor Maté describes healing as “nothing more or less than a natural movement toward wholeness.” That movement toward wholeness starts when we stop pushing away the parts of ourselves that still hold pain and begin to listen with compassion instead of judgment. You don’t have to love what happened to you; you get to love the part of you that still feels it. When that part feels safe, seen, and accepted, it no longer needs to sound the alarm.

This is the journey to wholeness—where awareness provides safety, safety empowers choice, and choice invites healing.

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I was inspired to write this piece because I have been reminded, lately, of what it’s like to carry the echoes of past experiences in my body. If you resonate with any of this, know that you don’t have to navigate it alone. Through coaching, we can gently explore what you’ve been feeling, create space for understanding, and honor your experiences in a way that feels safe and supportive. If that feels like the right next step for you, I invite you to schedule a free consultation to get started.