6 ways to Reconnect to Your Body After Years in Survival Mode
Sometimes when you find a small moment of stillness, you suddenly notice the tension in your shoulders, the shallow rise and fall of your breath, or the way that your jaw is probably clenched. You don’t even realize that you have been moving through life like an uninvited guest in your own body. Always pushing, always working, but never truly living or feeling.
For years, I had mistaken my level of productivity for my worthiness. So I filled every moment of my day with tasks and activities to stay busy. But the honest truth was I had simply forgotten how to be present in my own body. If you’re reading this, maybe you’ve felt the same. Maybe you’ve spent years prioritizing everyone else’s needs over your own, ignoring your body’s cries, or maybe chronic stress has left you feeling numb and out of touch with your emotions. You’re not alone. And most importantly, you can always reconnect to yourself.
How Do We Disconnect From Ourselves?
Whether it’s from chronic stress, overworking, unresolved trauma, or simply the conditioning that tells us to always do, living from a space of survival creates a separation between our body and our emotions. It’s a defense mechanism and a way to endure discomfort when we don’t feel safe enough to fully experience our feelings.
The nervous system has an innate wisdom to prioritize survival over connection. This can look like:
• Feeling numb rather than able to feel full spectrum of emotions
• Living in a constant state of anxiety or fight-or-flight
• Avoiding stillness because it feels uncomfortable or unproductive
• Feeling disconnected from pleasure, joy, or physical touch
• Overthinking and intellectualizing rather than feeling
For many people, especially women, this disconnection is reinforced by the world around us. We are taught to prioritize external validation over our internal wisdom. We silence our bodies when they ask for rest. We ignore our intuition because logic seems easier to accept. We power through exhaustion and stress, never pausing long enough to notice that we have become strangers to ourselves.
But healing is possible. And it starts with an intentional decision to listen and to return home to yourself.
Practices to Reconnect With Yourself
Healing disconnection isn’t ever going to be about forcing. It’s about inviting yourself back, gently and intentionally. Here are a few practices that have helped me and countless others reclaim their sense of embodiment and emotional connection:
Breathwork: The Portal Back to Presence
One of the simplest and most profound ways to reconnect with yourself is through your breath. When we live in survival mode, our breathing often becomes shallow which reinforces the body’s stress response. Breathwork allows us to slow down, shift to a calmer state, and access deeper states of presence. Even just a few minutes of intentional breathing each day can create space for emotions to rise to the surface, shifting you out of the numbness that survival mode brings.
Try this:
Sit in a chair with your feet planted on the floor, or lie down on your back with your hands resting on your belly.
Inhale deeply through the nose, allowing the belly to expand.
Gently hold the breath at the top for a few seconds, and then exhale slowly and fully through the mouth.
Take a moment to notice how your body feels in this moment.
Yoga: Reclaiming Your Body Through Movement
Yoga is a sacred practice of embodiment. It teaches us to be present with sensation, to honor our limits, and to trust our body’s wisdom. If you’ve been feeling disconnected, try a slow, intentional practice like Hatha or Yin yoga. These styles encourage deep presence, allowing you to move through stored tension and gently open up areas of tightness both physically and emotionally. Yoga will look different in every body. Let it be about meeting yourself on the mat, as you are.
Try this:
• Child’s Pose is a safe posture to connect with your breath and surrender tension
• Heart Openers like Cobra or Camel Pose to gently awaken emotions stored in the chest
• Hip Openers like Pigeon Pose to release stress and stagnant energy often held in the hips
Self-Touch and Massage: Cultivating Safety Within
When we’ve been disconnected for years, touch can feel unfamiliar or even uncomfortable. And this is something that I struggle severely with. I am not big on physical touch at all. But self-touch through dry brushing, oil massage, or simply placing a hand on your heart or belly are examples of powerful ways to remind your body that it is safe and cared for.
Try this:
Before bed, massage your skin with warm oil with essential oils like sandalwood or ylang-ylang and thank your body for carrying you through the day. Small acts of self-tenderness can slowly rebuild a sense of safety in your body.
Journaling: Writing Your Way Back to Your Feelings
If you struggle to articulate your emotions, journaling can be a powerful tool to bridge the gap between your mind and your heart. Writing allows us to override overthinking and allows your deeper, inner self to be heard. There is no right or wrong way to journal. Just let your words flow without judgment.
Try these prompts:
• “What does my body need from me today?”
• “What emotions have I been suppressing, and what might happen if I let them flow through me instead of resisting them?”
• “What am I afraid to feel and why?”
Reclaiming Joy and Pleasure
Survival mode teaches us to “survive”, but it often strips us of our joy. To fully reconnect with yourself, you must also reconnect with what things that bring you enjoyment. I am embarrassed to say up until maybe a year ago I used to think of pleasure as something that was to be put off until you’ve done everything you’re supposed to do. But the thing is… your to do list will never end. So incorporating joy and pleasures intentionally is something that we must add to that to-do list. The more you allow yourself to experience beauty, pleasure, and stillness, the more you will remember that you are meant to feel deeply.
Try this:
• Explore your personal style and wear fabrics that feel sensual and luxurious on your skin
• Play music that stirs emotion and movement in your body
• Spend time in nature, barefoot with feet connected to the Earth
• Make a ritual out of your morning matcha or tea, taking in the scent with each sip
Coming Home to Yourself
Reconnecting with your emotions and body is not going to be an overnight process. It is a long journey of trust, learning to listen again, and giving yourself permission to be in your body. Slowly but surely, you will come back to yourself. And when you do, you will realize that you were never truly lost. You just needed to give yourself space to be found.
If you ready to begin your journey back to yourself, try one of the practices above and share your experience in the comments! Let’s create a space for healing together.