Unwinding The Clench: Rebuilding Trust Within The Body

We live in a society that taught us from a young age that the way to make things happen is to work hard—to grind, to push past weakness of the mind or the body, and to get things done.

Many of us have started to question that system.

We’re questioning the notion that we have to ignore our desires, ignore the body, and use the mind to dictate what should be done.

Even though I am someone who has wholeheartedly embraced slowness, the joy of making things with my hands, and the practice of being present, I am still unlearning pieces of grind culture.

If you’ve been on this journey with me for a while, you know that I’ve worked hard to be in communication with my body—to respond to my nervous system when it whispers so it doesn’t have to shout, to be present for the small cues that remind us we are alive and to be here and present for the journey.

And yet, in December, I could have told you in real time all the ways I was ignoring myself.

I would be asked questions like, “Are you hosting everyone for dinner, or would you be okay with me cooking on Sunday?”

And even though every part of my nervous system screamed no, I would say yes.

Whether you want to call it people-pleasing, the grind of hosting, not wanting to be the odd one out, or not wanting to be labeled “difficult” (and I know I’m not the only woman who has run from that label), the result was the same.

I heard the no, and overrode it.

We’ve all been there. As you read this, I’m sure you can think of a recent moment when your body said no and you said yes anyway.

Acknowledgment is the power here.

For me, acknowledging the ways I overrode my system became the beginning of a long process of getting my body to unclench again.

After I realized how much I had betrayed myself—and yes, that word feels harsh, but it is the exact language my body uses—trust had to be rebuilt.

Just like in any other relationship, betrayal doesn’t get repaired by pretending it didn’t happen. It gets repaired through consistency, responsiveness, and care.

The rebuilding showed up in layers.

It started in my root chakra and my bowels. As that began to soften, it moved to my liver—an organ that has carried a heavy workload for me, especially in the absence of a gallbladder.

Then it showed itself in my diaphragm, in the way my breath had become shallow, held tight by a lack of trust.

Now I’m working in multiple systems at once: my solar plexus, my ribs, my stomach, and my intestinal and womb space.

I feel my stomach clench and ache when I eat foods that promote too much movement.

I feel pressure in my lower abdomen when I do too much.

My body is very clear about its boundaries right now.

And it would be so easy—especially for someone who lived deeply in the grind and fix-it mentality—to look at all of this and decide something is wrong and needs to be corrected.

But that isn’t true.

My body is communicating with me because I’m listening.

If I rushed to “fix” these sensations, they might quiet down temporarily, but they would simply move elsewhere, waiting to be addressed later.

Instead, I’m sitting with the discomfort.

I’m asking, again and again,

How can I help you trust me? How can I help you feel safe?

Before going further, I want to invite you to pause.

Drop into your body for a moment. Feel your fingers. Your toes. Scan yourself slowly.

How do your hips feel? Your lower back? Your shoulders?

Can your diaphragm expand into a full breath?

How does your stomach feel—are you digesting comfortably?

When we talk about safety in the body, there are always tells.

As I’ve been sitting with what my body is asking of me, I’ve been reflecting on how deeply ingrained the fix-it mentality is. We’re taught to push through discomfort, to override signals, to treat our bodies as obstacles rather than partners.

In this space of reflection, I have also been learning more about traditional Chinese medicine and the concept of Qi—our life force.

One of the simplest yet most profound ideas I’ve encountered is that warm foods support digestion and hormonal awakening. It sounds almost too basic, but when you look at how many people start their days with cold food or no food at all, it starts to make sense why so many of us struggle to feel grounded in the morning.

When we zoom out even further, especially for women, we see how deeply incompatible grind culture is with our biology.

Men’s hormones operate on a roughly 24-hour cycle.

Women’s do not.

We are cyclical beings.

Our energy, focus, creativity, and need for rest shift week by week.

To ignore that is to ignore the foundation of how we are designed.

For men, strength often shows up as knowing when to apply force and when to let things unfold. For women, our strength lives in softness—in responsiveness, intuition, and care.

It’s how we mother.

And it’s how we are meant to treat ourselves.

When you think about your body and its needs, try seeing yourself as a small child.

If that child were exhausted, would you tell them to push through?

If they were hungry, would you shame them for it?

If they were overwhelmed with emotion, would you tell them to stop being dramatic?

So many women today are struggling: with weight, with hormones, with fertility, with chronic discomfort, with feeling disconnected from their own bodies.

When you checked in with yourself earlier, did you feel the clench?

Our bodies soften when they feel safe. 

And from that softened state, digestion improves, hormones regulate, energy flows, and our bodies can finally ask—clearly and honestly—for what they need in the moment.

I’m continuing to sit in my discomfort.

I’m continuing to answer my body when it speaks.

This life isn’t about avoiding discomfort or only chasing pleasure.

We’re here to feel it all.

The real question is what kind of relationship we choose to have with those feelings.