Guided Body Scan: A Somatic Meditation to Calm and Regulate Your Nervous System
Hello, beautiful soul. ✨
When I pause and reflect on the work I do with clients, I sometimes laugh in awe of where I have ended up: serving past versions of myself. We often hear clichés like, “You serve a younger version of yourself.” I honestly never paid much attention to that cliché until I began experiencing it myself.
People—primarily women—began coming to work with me and they had a similar story to mine: raised in a home with addiction and mental illness (specifically, parents with borderline, narcissistic, and/or histrionic traits) and a soul-deep readiness to know themselves beyond who they became to survive their family system. This has happened organically and miraculously behind the scenes, and I truly sit here writing to you in awe of how God uses us as miracle workers with, beside, and in service to each other.
This is brave work. Over the past 14 years years, I have had to let go of identities I created to survive mental, emotional, and psychological abuse prisons. Healing takes time. And over time, I have cultivated more and more safety, trust, joy, peace, and freedom within myself. And over time, I have found and maintained healthy, reciprocal and generous relationships with people.
As my breathwork teacher Madeline Giles often said to us in teacher training, healing happens in layers and spirals. My layers and spirals continue. What is different now, 14 years later, is I don’t lament the layers and I don’t actively look for them. With a sense of self trust now, I know the layers and spirals will find me and I will find them…when we’re both ready to meet each other.
This is how clients often arrive at our work together: They are experiencing an inner voice—their soul—saying something like, “I am ready to receive support with the next level of my healing” or “I want to learn and implement somatic practices so that I can feel safer and freer in my mind, body, and life.”
Something special I offer to clients is a practice library: an intentionally curated library of guided meditations, somatic practices, and spiritual practices to support them with achieving their goals for our work together. One of those practices is a guided body scan, which I am sharing with you today.
Why Trauma Makes You Disconnect from Your Body
If you’ve experienced trauma, you may notice how hard it can feel to experience safety in your body. You may notice feeling consistently numb, anxious, over-responsible, hypervigilant, or like you're “floating outside yourself.” These are natural protective responses your nervous system uses when it receives a signal from your brain that you are in danger. When you feel stuck in a trauma response, it’s as if your body has its foot perpetually on the gas pedal and has lost its ability to remember that it also has a brake pedal. This is where somatic practices like a body scan come in…
How a Guided Body Scan Can Support Your Nervous System
A guided body scan is a somatic practice that gently invites you to remember that you have access to the brake pedal. Essentially, you are cultivating and re-activating your body and brain’s innate capacities to become aware and observe what is present with compassion and curiosity.
This practice can help you regulate your nervous system by activating your parasympathetic nervous system (your body’s rest, digest, and restore response). Over time, with daily practice, you can strengthen the part of your brain that knows how to observe with detachment, build emotional resilience, and feel more at home in your body.
Try This Trauma-Informed Body Scan Meditation
Find a quiet, comfortable space where you can sit or lie down. Press play below to experience the practice:
Want to Go Deeper in Your Healing Journey?
This body scan is one of the many simple somatic and spiritual tools I use to help clients heal themselves from trauma, anxiety, and emotional overwhelm. If you’re a sensitive, ambitious soul who feels stuck in old patterns, I’d love to support you.
👉 Read about my private coaching offering and book your discovery call here to see if 1:1 work is a good fit for you.
You don’t have to navigate this alone. Healing is possible—one intentional, supportive step at a time.
With care,
Heather
