WISE ASS WEDNESDAY

Why Somatic Movement Will Change the Way You Process Stress

Happy Wednesday, or as we like to call it around these parts, Wise Ass Wednesday. If you’re reading this, you probably survived Monday and Tuesday, which, let’s be honest, is a miracle in itself. I don’t know about you, but this last month has been really tough for me. I’ve had those depressing moments, those sudden spikes of panic where my chest feels like it’s being sat on by an invisible elephant, and those days where the world just feels a bit too loud and a lot too much.

We’ve all been there, right? It’s such a shitty place to be. You’re trying to keep up with the "grind," trying to be the most productive version of yourself, while your brain is basically a browser with fifty tabs open and half of them are playing music you can’t find.

Usually, the advice we get is pretty standard: "Just meditate," "Go for a run," or the ever-helpful "Just don't think about it." Yeah, thanks, Carol, I’ll get right on that. The problem is that most of this advice treats us like we’re just floating heads. We act as if our minds are the only thing that matters, and the rest of our body is just a glorified Uber for our brains. But here’s the kicker: we aren’t just floating heads. We are biological meat suits. And these meat suits? They remember everything.

The Floating Head Fallacy

For years, I thought I could think my way out of stress. I’d sit there, eyes closed, trying to "om" my way into a state of Zen while my shoulders were up around my ears and my jaw was clenched so tight I was surprised I didn't crack a tooth. It’s the the struggle we all face. We try to use logic to fix a feeling, but feelings don't speak English. They speak "Nervous System."

We live in a culture that rewards the grind and treats burnout like a badge of honor. We’re taught to ignore the physical signals, the stomach aches, the tight hips, the shallow breathing, until we literally break down. We’ve become disconnected from the very vessel that carries us through life. Who comes up with these things? Who decided that being a "productive member of society" meant ignoring the fact that we are animals with physiological needs?

This is where somatic movement comes in, and honestly, it’s a total game-changer. It’s not about "working out" or hitting a PR. It’s about getting back into the body and actually listening to the weird, messy stuff going on under the surface.

Why Your Body Is a Trauma Storage Unit

Think about the last time you got really stressed. Maybe it was a deadline, a fight with a partner, or just the general existential dread of checking the news. Your body reacted before your brain even had a chance to process it. Your heart rate spiked, your muscles tensed, and your breath got short.

In the wild, an animal that survives a predator attack will literally shake it off. They tremble to release all that pent-up survival energy. But humans? We’re "civilized." We have a stressful meeting and then we sit at our desks for another four hours, bottling that energy up. We store it. We pack it away in our psoas, our necks, and our lower backs like some kind of neurotic attic.

That’s why you can meditate for an hour and still feel like you’re vibrating with anxiety. You’ve calmed the "head," but the "meat suit" is still stuck in fight-or-flight mode. It’s why the shame game is so hard to win; we feel guilty for not being "relaxed" when our physiology is literally screaming at us that we aren't safe.

Somatic Movement: The Weird Stuff That Actually Works

Somatic movement sounds fancy, but it’s really just about "internal sensing." It’s moving based on how it feels on the inside, not how it looks on the outside. It’s the opposite of that polished, Instagram-friendly yoga where everyone looks like a graceful swan. Somatic movement is often ugly. It’s twitchy. It’s slow. It involves a lot of weird sighing and maybe some shaking.

Is there a way out? I used to ask myself that every time I felt a panic attack coming on. I realized that instead of trying to "calm down," I needed to "move through."

When you engage in somatic practices, whether it’s gentle rocking, intuitive stretching, or even just rolling around on the floor, you’re telling your nervous system, "Hey, I’m here. I see you. We’re safe now." You’re building vagal tone, which is a fancy way of saying you’re teaching your body how to switch from the "freak out" mode (sympathetic) to the "chill out" mode (parasympathetic).

The "Wise Ass" Reality Check

Look, I’m not saying that dancing around your living room like a caffeinated toddler is going to solve all your problems. Life is still going to be messy. People are still going to be idiots. We’re still going to explore the idiocy of tribalism and brainwashing in our daily lives. But when you have a better connection to your body, you aren't as easily knocked off balance by the bullshit.

I’ve had to learn how to let the moments guide me. I’ve had to learn not to be too hard on myself when I can't "think" my way into a better mood. Sometimes, the only way through the "doom and gloom and shit" is to literally move it out of your tissues.

We often talk about wise ass wednesday as a time to cut through the fluff. The fluff is the idea that mental health is just about "positive thinking." The reality is that mental health is a full-body experience. If you’re ignoring your body, you’re only fighting half the battle.

How to Start (Without Being a Perfectionist)

If you want to try this out, don’t go looking for a "10-step plan to somatic bliss." That’s just more grind culture nonsense. Instead, try these simple, slightly irreverent things:

1. The Shake: Stand up. Shake your hands. Shake your arms. Shake your legs. Do it for two minutes. You’ll feel like a complete dork. Embrace the dorkiness. That shaking is literally discharging stress.
2. The Sigh: Take a deep breath in and let out a loud, dramatic, "I’m-over-this" sigh. The kind of sigh you’d give if you just found out the coffee machine is broken. That vibration in your throat stimulates the vagus nerve.
3. The Floor Roll: Just lay on the floor and move. No goals. No reps. Just feel the floor against your back and see where your body wants to go. It’s a way of life to just exist without needing to perform.

Coming Out of the Deep Holes

We come out from the deep holes we create for ourselves by realizing we aren't broken; we’re just overloaded. Our biological meat suits are doing exactly what they were designed to do: protect us: but they haven't updated their software for the 21st century. They think a snarky email from your boss is a saber-toothed tiger.

By practicing somatic movement, you’re giving your body the update it needs. You’re saying, "I hear the alarm, but there's no fire."

Despite how difficult it can be, and despite how difficult it can be to remember these tools when you're in the thick of it, we can start with ourselves. We can stop treating ourselves like machines and start treating ourselves like living, breathing, bouncing organisms.

So, next time you feel that familiar tightening in your chest or that buzzing in your brain, don’t just sit there and take it. Get up. Move weirdly. Shake it off. Be a "wise ass" to your own stress. Your meat suit will thank you.

Stay authentic, stay messy, and don't be too hard on yourself. We're all just trying to figure this out one breath at a time.

Penny.