When Understanding Isn't Enough: Working With the Stories We Carry in the Body – By: Aspen Marino

Often in my work as a Holistic Bodyworker and Coach, we are unwinding the stories that keep us trapped in old patterns.

What does that mean?

We all have stories we tell ourselves—sometimes so often that we don't even realize we're telling them.

I'm not good enough.

I'm always disappointing people.

I'm unlovable.

I'm too much.

The experience is real. But the story isn’t necessarily true.

It’s real in the emotional energy it evokes.
Real in how it makes us feel.
Real in how it shapes our choices, our relationships, and our experience of ourselves.

Over time, these stories can create a smaller sense of self. A more confined, limited version of who we believe ourselves to be.

We can become so identified with that version of ourselves that we forget there is anything else underneath it.

And this is where I see something missing for many people.

We can understand our stories intellectually.

We can know where they came from. We can trace them back to childhood. We can recognize our patterns and talk about them for years in therapy. We can learn to reframe our thoughts and tell ourselves a different story.

And all of that can be valuable.

But sometimes, we still find ourselves reacting in the same ways.

We still shut down.

We still people-please.

We still struggle to set the boundary.

We still feel that familiar contraction in our chest or belly when someone is disappointed in us.

Why?

Because understanding the story is not the same as digesting the energy underneath it.

Some of what keeps these patterns alive isn't just a thought. It's what happens in the body when the old story gets activated—the emotions, sensations, impulses, and protective responses that have become familiar over time.

And often, we don't want to go there.

Underneath I'm not good enough might be grief.

Underneath I'm always disappointing people might be fear.

Underneath I'm unlovable might be a deep vulnerability we've learned to protect ourselves from feeling.

So we try to change the story without touching what lives underneath it.

But the body can be a different doorway.

Instead of trying to think our way out of the pattern, we can learn to slow down, notice what is happening inside, and gently move toward what we've been avoiding.

Not forcing.

Not reliving everything.

Not trying to make ourselves feel something we're not ready to feel.

But developing the capacity to stay present with our actual experience.

So much of our work is learning to move toward the vulnerability underneath the story—to drop down and feel what is actually there. And when we can do that, something that has been held for a long time can finally move.

Not just think differently.

Feel differently.

When that trapped emotional energy can finally be felt, expressed, and metabolized, the story begins to lose its grip.

You don’t have to convince yourself that you’re good enough.

You begin to experience that you are.

You become more free.

You have more room to respond differently.

More access to the parts of yourself that were always there underneath the pattern.

This is one of the things I love about body-based work.

The goal isn't to get rid of every difficult emotion or never have an old pattern arise again.

It's to become less controlled by what we've carried.

To have more freedom in how we meet ourselves, our relationships, and our lives.

And that’s where real change becomes possible.

If you are interested in my work and learning more, schedule a free call, or come in for a session and see for yourself, book at Enso here. If you’d like some free body resources, you can check out my website here.