28. What Your Body Is Trying to Tell You: Somatic Therapy, Pain, and Rehab

In this episode, I sit down with my friend and client Dani, a somatic psychotherapist and climber, to talk about how the body and mind communicate — and what it really means to feel your feelings.

Dani shares how her own journey through chronic illness, trauma, and movement led her into somatic therapy, and we explore the deep overlap between her work and the kind of pain science–based rehab I do with climbers. We talk about why so many people struggle to slow down, why emotions show up as physical sensations, and how both somatic therapy and strength training can help you rebuild trust with your body.

Whether you’re navigating pain, dealing with stress, or just curious about what it means to actually “listen to your body,” this episode will help you see how awareness, curiosity, and compassion can change the way you move — and the way you heal.

WE TALK ABOUT:

• What somatic therapy really is (and why it’s not just for trauma work)

• The connection between emotions, sensations, and pain

• Why we tend to intellectualize our feelings instead of feeling them

• The role of awareness and curiosity in both therapy and rehab

• How pain stories and beliefs shape the way we experience symptoms

• The concept of allostatic load and how life stressors impact recovery

• Overlaps between pain reprocessing, graded exposure, and nervous system regulation

• Practical tools: the feelings wheel, body sensation lists, grounding and self-hold techniques, and how to start a dialogue with your body

• Why climbers might already be practicing somatic therapy on the wall — and how to bring more awareness to it

Healing isn’t just about fixing tissue or solving a movement pattern — it’s about learning to listen, slow down, and rebuild trust in your body.
Somatic therapy gives language and space to sensations, while strength training and rehab build the capacity to act within that space. Both help you reconnect with your body instead of fighting against it.

CONNECT WITH DANI:

🔗 somaticswithdani.com📱 Instagram: @somaticswithdanni

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