You said yes before your body could speak. Then came the tight jaw, the midnight scroll, the argument in the shower. And right behind the rage, the guilt. Who am I to be this angry?
You are not too much. You are done. And your body has been trying to tell you for a very long time.
In this companion to the rage episode, I'm answering the question so many of you sent me: why do my boundaries collapse the moment someone looks disappointed? A boundary isn't a sentence. It's a state your body has to be able to hold. And your rage is the boundary, the no that never got to be said.
In this episode
· Why your no disappears - fawn, freeze and the nervous system's split second safety calculation
· Why saying no is a love language, and why a yes from a clenched body is compliance, not love
· Why being capable decorates the pattern instead of dissolving it
· My own story - the good girl, the parentified child, the motherless daughter, and rebuilding a no that was never safe
· The ancestral thread - how the swallowed no travels down the motherline, and how it stops in one body, in one lifetime
· The culture that profits from women who can't say no
· Rupture and repair - why it's okay to rupture a connection, and why repair is a choice, never an obligation
· Where the swallowed no lives in your body - jaw, throat, shoulders, belly, hands, pelvis
· A guided somatic practice to find your no and hold it, plus a 30 second version for real life
· A new definition of strength · capacity, not carrying
If this episode spoke to you, subscribe to Nervous System Support on YouTube @nervoussystemsupport, leave a review wherever you listen, and share it with a woman who holds everyone else together.
When you're ready to do this work in your body with support, book a session at www.thesomatherapycollective.com
Briony Montgomery · somatic psychotherapist, counsellor, educator and founder of The Somatherapy Collective and The Reclaim Me Project
www.thesomatherapycollective.com
YouTube: @nervoussystemsupport
Instagram: @BrionyMontgomerytherapy ·@TheReclaimMeProject
Music: Finn Holloman
