Healing In Motion: When The Body Knows It’s Time to Let Go.
The Storm Within: Nature’s Reflection of Emotional Release.
The clouds rolled in, masking the bright sun and pushing the heat of the desert to a dropping point. Each breath became cool as the pressure rose around me. It was time to go; I could feel it. The summer rains often came quickly with monsoons and flash floods. Ahead of me was the winding road that would drop in elevation before rising again to meet the highway. Our opportunity to leave was now or wait out the storm predicted for days.
I packed myself into the car and reluctantly towed my cousin behind me. Our argument over when to leave lasted an hour before I won. The rain began to fall with a light drizzle. Soon, we were in the middle of the desert, windshield wipers on high and struggling to see. As the downpour washed away the earth, streams of red clay crossed the road, and our path began to disappear.
I stopped the car, uncertain of where the road was, looking for signs of plants sticking up out of the water. As I looked over the car’s edge, all I could see was the sky reflected. We were surrounded by water. The road was gone, and the water calmed into a perfect mirror. It was like standing at the gates of heaven, surrounded by sky. The fear washed away in the beauty, and a once-in-a-lifetime perspective settled into stillness within. The storm broke, the sky opened, and the sun reappeared as the wind stilled. There we were in a perfect mirror as far as the eye could see—heaven above, so as below.
When the Body Holds On: The Unseen Weight of Emotional Pain.
There are times in our lives when it seems to rain. Much like a water-starved desert, our emotions can be that much-needed rain. Clearing out the reflection of the past brings us to the truth of where we are, giving a colorless landscape a burst of color and a vivid new perspective. Even during trying times, what moves us in life is rarely the sunny days.
Life mirrors nature—storms rolling in just when the path ahead seems clear, the pressure rising before the release. As a transformational coach specializing in emotional integration, I’ve spent years guiding people through internal tempests. My work retrains the body’s natural instincts, helping build a new foundation—what I call Emotional Architecture—so emotions no longer feel like something to fear but rather a force that clears the way for healing. This perspective wasn’t just something I studied; it was something I lived. As an autoimmune warrior and Neuromuscular therapist working with chronic pain, I’ve experienced firsthand how trauma embeds itself in the body, shaping our habits, relationships, and even how we breathe. But just as the desert needs the rain, our bodies, too, need release.
A Call to Forgive: The Moment That Changed Everything.
I sat quietly in the church pews, looking upward at the art that surrounded the parishioners. I had made a habit of hiding among the churchgoers, listening to the chanting and prayers, reveling in the stillness I found in a church where no one knew who I was.
As the preacher spoke, my heart broke into pieces. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” I went from silently meditating to hearing a clear command to forgive. I had hardened my heart like the dry desert in need of rain.
An internal voice had grown stronger, fighting for value and worth against those who had turned into ghosts in my life. The death of the love I once had turned into a vacuum of comparison, and there I was trying to outrun the inversion of empathy, taking care of the feelings of those who couldn’t be bothered to return it. The price of people-pleasing, clothed in betrayal, was an all-too-common story. It was time to move on and write a new story, but to do that, the old one had to be committed to the past.
Running Toward Release: The Body’s Role in Emotional Healing.
Sometimes, when we are ready to move forward, our body has its own memory, lingering and pulling us back into the protective instinct that keeps us stuck. Our mind may have moved on, but the subconscious program remains intact.
Later that night, I put on my headphones, an oversized sweatshirt, and my running shoes. I don’t run, but I enjoy solitude and the passing homes as I walk. Yet, as the sun fell, lighting the sky with reds, pinks, and vibrant oranges, Venus chased the moon that had already risen, catching fire from the sun’s final dance. I started to run, and I couldn’t stop the anger that had been frozen inside me. I cried and ran but could not outrun what I had held within. It was magical; my body was releasing what had been stuck. My journey was even accompanied by a golden retriever, forcing his mom to wait for me, soon pulling her and keeping an eye as I ran.
I ran until my body was exhausted, my breath lost to tears fighting their way out of the anger. The love I had held, which turned to sadness, stopped negotiating, and I was finally able to catch my breath. I was disappointed but no longer frozen.
Letting Go: Finding Freedom Through Forgiveness.
The storms in our lives are not here to break us but to cleanse us. Just as the desert is shaped by rain, we, too, are sculpted by the emotions we allow ourselves to feel. Forgiveness, grief, anger—these are not signs of weakness but proof that we are alive.
My run that night was more than just movement; it was a breaking open, a surrender to what had been trapped inside. In that release, I found something unexpected—relief, clarity, and the undeniable truth that the body always knows when it’s time to let go. We don’t heal by outrunning the storm. We heal by standing in the rain and letting it wash us clean. If you are ready to explore this path, join me in our monthly Elevation Session to further explore the path to forgiveness and releasing resentment by clicking on this link.
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