Finding Safety in Your Body: Somatic Experiencing for Body Image and Eating Disorders
In this piece, Anna MacGillivray, RCC and Somatic Experiencing–trained clinician, explores how body image and eating struggles often begin in the nervous system, and how Somatic Experiencing can help people reconnect with their bodies, rebuild safety, and gently shift long-standing patterns of shame and disconnection. If you’d like to read more about Somatic Experiencing, you can explore Nimble’s Somatic Experiencing page or Anna’s companion blog on SE and addiction.
Have you ever felt uncomfortable in your own skin—like your body is more of a battleground than a safe home? Maybe you spend a lot of time in your head, worrying about food, weight, or how you look, yet feel strangely disconnected from your physical self. You might swing between hyper-awareness (constantly checking your body or counting calories) and numbness (not feeling hunger, or “zoning out” during meals). If this sounds familiar, please know you’re not alone—and it’s not your fault. Many people who struggle with body image or disordered eating carry a deep sense of disconnection or distrust toward their bodies. Often, these struggles run much deeper than willpower or self-discipline; they’re rooted in how our nervous system has learned to cope and protect us. In other words, body image and eating challenges are not just in the mind—they’re in the body and nervous system, too.
Learn more about Somatic Experiencing at Nimble Counselling
Why Body Image and Eating Struggles Involve the Nervous System
When we face shame, stress, or trauma—common in the context of body image and eating disorders—our bodies can go into survival mode. The nervous system responds to threat through fight, flight, or freeze. Think of fight/flight as the body’s gas pedal (gearing up to fight a threat or run from it), and freeze as the brake (shutting down to avoid overwhelm). How might this look for someone with body-related struggles?
Fight/Flight: You might feel hypervigilant about your body’s size or shape, driven to fight perceived imperfections or flee from bodily feelings. For instance, an anxious “fight” energy might fuel strict dieting or over-exercising—attempts to conquer the discomfort. A “flight” impulse might mean avoiding mirrors, social meals, or any situation that triggers body anxiety. Your heart races around food or in the locker room; there’s a constant underlying sense of unease. This is your nervous system stuck in a state of chronic stress and anxiety around your body.
Freeze/Collapse: On the other hand, you might also know the feeling of going numb or “checking out.” Many people with body image struggles experience dissociation – a kind of freeze response where you disconnect from bodily sensations. You might feel nothing when you look in the mirror (as if it’s not even you), or you might not register hunger and fullness cues until they’re extreme. Shame can trigger this freeze state too; feeling deeply ashamed of your body can make you want to hide, become small, or completely shut down emotionally and physically. In fact, disordered eating behaviours are often ways to move away from the body. For example, bingeing or purging can be ways to numb painful feelings, essentially pushing away awareness of your body and emotions. In the moment, disconnecting might protect you from pain, but long-term, it leaves you stuck. You’re left feeling stuck, unable to relax, emotionally numb, or unable to trust your own body.
These responses aren’t conscious choices; they’re your nervous system’s wise attempts to protect you. If your body has felt unsafe due to trauma, criticism, bullying, or any experiences that taught you “my body isn’t okay”, then these reactions make sense. The problem is, when our survival physiology stays in charge, we remain in a loop of distress. We feel anxious, disconnected, or ashamed in our bodies, and no amount of positive self-talk or diet rules can break that cycle at the root. This is where Somatic Experiencing can offer a new way forward.
What is Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a gentle therapy approach that helps reset an overwhelmed nervous system and rebuild a sense of safety in your body. Developed by Dr. Peter Levine, SE is based on the understanding that trauma and chronic stress are not just psychological – they’re also deeply physiological. Our bodies can carry the energy of fight, flight, or freeze long after a difficult experience is over. If that survival energy isn’t fully processed, it gets “stuck” in the body, leading to symptoms like chronic anxiety and hypervigilance, feeling stuck or unable to relax, dissociation (numbing out), persistent tension or pain, and an underlying difficulty feeling safe. Sound familiar to what we described above? Exactly – those are the same states many people with body image issues or disordered eating struggle with.
Somatic Experiencing offers a way to gently release that stuck survival energy. Rather than focusing on thoughts or telling your story in detail, SE works with the “felt sense” – the subtle physical sensations that reflect what you’re feeling inside. An SE practitioner (often a counsellor with specialized training) will help you tune into your body in a safe, gradual way. With guidance, you might notice, for example, the tightness in your chest when you talk about your body, or the tingling in your hands when you feel anxious. By tracking these sensations, the body can begin to do what it wanted to do back when the original distress happened – maybe it needed to cry, to run, to curl up – and complete those responses now in small, safe doses.
Ready to start your journey? Book you first session here.
How Somatic Experiencing Works (And Why It’s Different from Talk Therapy)
You might be wondering how focusing on sensations can really help with something as serious as an eating disorder or years of hating your body. It’s a fair question! Somatic Experiencing works from the bottom up – meaning it starts in the body, and then the mind follows – whereas traditional talk therapy works top down (thoughts first, hoping the body calms later). Neither approach is “better”; in fact, they complement each other. But if you’ve tried talk therapy and still feel stuck, incorporating the body can provide a deeper layer of healing. Here’s what SE looks like in practice:
Titration
Instead of diving into the most painful memories or feelings all at once, SE uses titration – essentially, taking tiny, manageable steps. You might focus on a small sensation or emotion for a few moments and then pause. This careful pacing prevents overwhelm. For example, rather than evoking all your body shame at full force, a therapist might help you notice just the flutter in your stomach for a moment, then guide you to return to a neutral or pleasant sensation (like feeling the support of the chair or remembering a safe place). Little by little, these small doses let your nervous system process big feelings without flooding you.
Pendulation
In SE, you won’t stay in distressing feelings the whole time. The therapist will likely guide you in pendulation – gently moving back and forth between activation and calm. Think of a pendulum swinging: we touch into an uncomfortable sensation briefly, then swing back to something comfortable or neutral. This back-and-forth rhythm builds your capacity to experience emotions safely. Over time, you may notice that what felt unbearable before (say, noticing the weight of your body, or feeling anger or sadness) becomes tolerable and can even resolve, as your body learns * “I can handle this, and I can come back to calm.”
Tracking the Felt Sense
Your SE therapist will help you track what’s happening in your body in the here-and-now. They might ask questions like, “What are you noticing inside as you talk about this?” or “How does your body know it’s anxious right now?” If you say “I feel tight,” they may gently ask, “Where do you feel that tightness? What happens if we stay with that sensation for a few seconds?” The goal is to let your body lead the way to what it needs. Perhaps your chest tightness wants to soften after you acknowledge it, or perhaps your leg, which has been jittery, wants to kick (releasing a bit of flight energy). In SE, we follow those impulses in a controlled way, so your body can complete its natural responses and finally let go of the tension it’s been holding.
Crucially, Somatic Experiencing does NOT force you to relive trauma or talk about everything in detail. In fact, you can heal without describing every event that hurt you. SE finds that when the body releases its stored stress, the mind often finds relief too. Many clients appreciate that they don’t have to explain or justify their eating habits or body struggles over and over; instead, they experience change from within. As one summary puts it: in SE, healing begins in the body, allowing the mind to follow. This can feel empowering if you’ve been stuck in endless anxious thoughts – a welcome change from trying to “think your way” out of the problem.
Learn more about this blogs author and Somatic Experience trained RCC Anna MacGillivray
How Can Somatic Experiencing Support Body Image and Eating Concerns?
So, how does all this translate to making peace with your body or overcoming disordered eating? Somatic Experiencing can be a powerful ally for anyone who feels unsafe or disconnected in their body. Here are a few ways SE can support healing in these areas:
Reconnecting with Your Body (Safely)
If you’ve felt cut off from your body, SE offers a pathway to gently come home to yourself. Rather than forcing body positivity, it might start with simply noticing neutral sensations (like the breath or the feet on the floor) to re-establish a sense of presence. Over time, as you practice tuning into small bodily experiences, you start to live more in your body instead of in your head. This reconnection is done at your pace – ensuring it feels safe. For someone who’s used to dissociating or feeling outside their body, this can be profound. One step at a time, you learn that it’s okay to inhabit yourself again.
Building Tolerance for Sensations & Emotions
Many people with eating disorders have a low tolerance for certain internal experiences – for example, the sensation of fullness might trigger panic, or feeling sadness might be overwhelming, leading to numbing through food. SE helps expand your window of tolerance by titrating exposure to sensations. In sessions, you might slowly touch into the feeling of a slight hunger pang, or the tightness in your throat when you’re sad, and then back off to calm. This careful practice can train your nervous system to handle these sensations without triggering extreme responses. With greater tolerance, that urgent need to binge or restrict often diminishes, because those feelings in your body no longer spell “emergency.”
Releasing Survival Energy Held in the Body
Sometimes disordered eating behaviours are fueled by unresolved fight or flight energy. For example, the urge to compulsively exercise could be a form of flight energy that never got to complete (a constant need to “outrun” stress or anger), and a binge might be an attempt to fight against unbearable loneliness or to soothe a jangled system. Through Somatic Experiencing, you can start to discharge that pent-up survival energy in safer ways. This might look like your body finally having a big sigh, a cry, or even subtle movements like your hands unclenching – things that signal a release. Bit by bit, SE can help free you from those cycles so you’re not unconsciously driven by old fight/flight impulses. People often report feeling lighter, calmer, or less “on edge” as their nervous system sheds this load.
Healing Shame and Self-Criticism
Shame is a heavy burden that frequently accompanies negative body image and eating disorders. It’s that feeling of “I’m not good enough” or “there’s something wrong with me,” and it doesn’t just live in the mind – you feel shame in your body (perhaps as a slump in posture, a flushed face, a stomach drop). In SE, because we work with bodily sensations, we can address shame on a physiological level. For instance, noticing the urge to collapse inward when you feel ashamed, and then perhaps finding an opposite sensation of strength or openness. With compassionate guidance, you learn to befriend the parts of your body that hold shame. Over time, this can transform that embodied feeling of “I’m bad” into something more forgiving and kind. In essence, we invite the body to experience self-compassion. As your body finds some warmth and acceptance, your inner critic often softens. You begin to truly feel that you are not broken or “too much” – just human, worthy of care. This process helps melt the grip of shame, which in turn reduces the urge to punish or control your body through harsh behaviours.
Restoring Trust in Your Body’s Signals
Eating disorders often involve a profound distrust of the body. You may feel at war with natural signals like hunger, fullness, fatigue, or emotion – perhaps fearing that if you listen, your body will betray you. SE can help rebuild trust between “you” and your body. How? By facilitating positive experiences of listening to your body in manageable ways. For example, in an SE session you might notice your body is exhausted and, with the therapist’s support, allow yourself to acknowledge that and rest for a moment – and nothing bad happens; in fact, you feel a little relief. Or you might sense hunger and practice just observing it with curiosity rather than panic. Each time you tune in and find that a sensation or need isn’t actually dangerous, you regain a bit of trust. Over time, this can translate to daily life: feeling hunger and knowing it’s okay to eat, feeling full and knowing it’s safe to stop, feeling anxious and knowing it will pass. Your body becomes less of a scary stranger and more of an ally. Recovering this internal trust is a key part of healing – it allows you to respond to your body’s needs (for nourishment, rest, comfort) with more confidence and care.
Overall, Somatic Experiencing supports whole-person healing. It recognizes that you cannot fully heal an issue that lives in the body with the mind alone. By including the body, SE helps integrate the physical, emotional, and even relational aspects of recovery. You learn to feel again, safely and slowly, so that things like eating, resting, movement, and mirror-gazing become less charged. SE doesn’t “replace” nutritional guidance, medical support, or other therapies you might need for an eating disorder, but it adds a crucial piece of the puzzle: your body’s wisdom. Many find that pairing somatic therapy with traditional approaches accelerates their progress, because the work goes deeper than talking in circles around the problem.
What Does a Somatic Experiencing Session Feel Like?
It’s natural to be curious (or even nervous) about what actually happens in a somatic therapy session. First and foremost, Somatic Experiencing therapist will go at your pace and make sure you feel safe. In the beginning of a session, you can expect a bit of talking to check in, just like any therapy. But at some point, your therapist might invite you to notice what’s happening in your body as you talk. For example, if you’re describing a stressful week of body image triggers, they might gently ask, “How are you feeling in your body right now as you share this?” You might respond, “I notice my shoulders are up to my ears.” The therapist could then guide you: “Okay, let’s stay with that. Maybe take a moment to really feel that tightness in your shoulders… Now, see what happens if you allow your shoulders to drop just a little, or if you take a slightly deeper breath.” This might sound simple, but these small adjustments are powerful. You may find that a deep sigh comes, or a feeling of relief, or even a wave of sadness that passes through and then dissipates. These are signs of your nervous system releasing tension and finding regulation.
In a Somatic Experiencing session, there’s no rush. The atmosphere is often one of quiet, calm, and curiosity. You might spend several minutes just following the trail of one sensation. The therapist is like a compassionate guide, helping you navigate your inner landscape. They’ll also help you “pendulate” – if something feels too intense, they will help you step back into a zone of comfort. If you get very anxious discussing an incident (say, a comment someone made about your body), the therapist might notice and say: “Let’s pause on the story for a moment. Can you feel your feet on the ground? What happens if you gently push them into the floor? Do you notice your breath?” These actions help ground you, bringing you back from a fight/flight state toward safety. In SE, you are always in control. If something feels like too much, you let your therapist know and you slow down.
Sometimes, an SE session might include imagery or metaphor. For instance, if you feel “broken” inside, the therapist might invite you to imagine what your body does feel like – maybe you say, “It feels like I’m made of thin glass.” They might then work with that: “What does your body need, as glass, to feel safer? Maybe some protective padding? What would that look like?” While it may sound a bit creative, these visualizations tap into the body’s language. You might suddenly sense, “I need warmth,” and grab a blanket – an action your body prompted that brings comfort. Little moments of attending to your body’s needs are actually the healing happening in real time.
You won’t be asked to do anything scary or strange. In fact, a lot of SE can happen with you just sitting in a chair, maybe with eyes closed or softly gazing at the floor, simply noticing. Some sessions might involve a bit of gentle movement or breathing exercises if that’s helpful (for example, if your body has a lot of restless energy, the therapist might do a subtle shaking exercise with you to release it, or some grounding yoga-like poses – always within your comfort level). It’s very much a collaboration where your body leads and the therapist follows with supportive guidance.
Many clients describe leaving somatic sessions feeling lighter, more present, and more “in” their body than when they came in. Progress might look like: “I noticed I actually felt my hunger today and ate when I was hungry – that’s new.” Or “Normally when I see a photo of myself I go numb with shame, but now I notice I can stay with the discomfort and it passes.” These shifts might be subtle at first, but they grow. Over time, you build a new, safer relationship with your own body. And perhaps the best part is that this approach reinforces that you are not broken at all – your body has been trying to protect you, and now it is finding that it doesn’t have to fight so hard anymore. Healing, in Somatic Experiencing, often comes with a sense of coming back to life. It can be a slow, gentle awakening: sensations of comfort, moments of joy or calm, a feeling of wholeness that maybe you haven’t felt in a long time.
Read more from Anna MacGillivray in her blog
Finding Support in Vancouver and BC
If you’re reading this and resonating, you might be feeling a mix of hope and hesitation. It’s okay to move slowly. Healing body image and eating issues is a journey that requires support, and you deserve to have compassionate care on the path. Many people in Vancouver (and across British Columbia) are turning to body-based therapies like Somatic Experiencing to address these kinds of struggles which is why Nimble Counselling offers both Somatic Experiencing & somatic focused therapists. It’s not just a trend; it’s part of a holistic understanding of mental health that recognizes the mind-body connection. In fact, We have found our Somatic Experiencing therapy in Vancouver is increasingly sought out by those looking for trauma-informed, integrative care for eating disorders and body image concerns. And if you’re not in the city, no problem: Nimble offers online counselling across BC, so you can access somatic therapy wherever you are in the province.
At Nimble Counselling, we integrate Somatic Experiencing with more traditional talk therapies to support mind–body healing. Our team believes that feeling safe in your body is foundational to any other growth. We’ve seen firsthand how a gentle somatic approach can help someone break free from shame, truly feel their feelings without being overwhelmed, and start to trust themselves again. Whether you’re dealing with long standing eating disorder recovery, body dysmorphia, or just a lot of anxiety and disconnection, somatic therapy can be a game-changer. It’s not a magic wand or an overnight fix (nothing in therapy is), but it opens a door that maybe you didn’t know was there – a door toward peace in your own skin.
If all of this sounds new but intriguing, you might simply start by noticing. Right now, as you finish reading, take a moment. Maybe let your shoulders relax, or place a hand on your heart or your belly, and just breathe. This small act of noticing your body with kindness is somatic healing in its simplest form. Perhaps it brings a tiny bit of softening or relief. That’s the beginning.
When you feel ready for more support, consider reaching out to a professional who understands somatic work. You don’t have to navigate this alone. A therapist trained in Somatic Experiencing can be an ally to gently guide you back to safety and connection within yourself. Healing is possible. No matter how long you’ve felt estranged from your body, it can become a place of home again. Your body is waiting for you with wisdom and resilience you may not even know is there. With the right support, you can learn to listen to it, trust it, and live in it with greater ease.
Courage can be as quiet as a breath. If you’re breathing, you’re already taking steps. And when you’re ready, we at Nimble are here to walk with you, one gentle step at a time, towards a more peaceful relationship with your body. You deserve to feel safe, to feel whole, and to know that coming back to your body can be the start of coming back to yourself.
