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How to heal through movement
Consider this as an invitation to take your healing journey and personal development journey to the next level.
Marina Nabão is embodiment coach dedicated to supporting people through a trauma-informed journey of somatic healing and empowerment. She is a Brazilian, biracial, Black, cis-woman living in the SF Bay Area, CA.
As a daughter of a psychologist and a philosopher, curiosity and the search for a broader understanding of life is her natural state. So it’s no surprise that her own search to understand her inner world and grow in all areas of life – professional, relational, affective, sexual, and spiritual – have taken her on a very rich journey.
This Episode we chat about...
How trauma remains in the body
Stages of healing
Healing through meaningful self-connection
Somatic work for non-binary folx
This transcript was generated with the help of AI. Thank you to our clients for supporting us as we strive to improve accessibility and pay equitable wages for things like human transcription.
Have you ever wondered why almost all the health and wellness information you see out there is so white, cis able-bodied and het? I know I have. And as a queer black registered dietitian, I gotta tell you, I'm not into it. I believe health and happiness should be accessible to everyone. That is precisely why I wrote Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation and why I host Body Liberation for All.
The road to health and happiness has a couple of extra steps for chronically stressed people, like queer folks and folks of color. But don't worry, my guests and I have got you covered. If you're ready to live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of your life, you are in the right place.
Body Liberation Theme Song
They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them. Live your life just like you like it
It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You were born to win. Head up high with confidence. This show is for everyone. So, I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.
Dalia: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Body Liberation for All. I'm your host and decolonize wellness and body image coach Dalia Kinsey. I help queer folks of color heal their struggles with shame self-acceptance through nutrition and self-care so they can live the most fierce, liberated, and joyful version of their lives.
Today I have a special guest on the show to talk about a subject that's really been calling my attention a lot lately. I have been rereading The Body Keeps the Score and thinking about the ways that trauma and unprocessed emotions get trapped in the body.
I've noticed myself some very strong reactions to seemingly minor incidents in my life at work clearly connected to previous negative experiences and racialized trauma is just like any other kind of trauma. You can have issues with purging these negative sensations from your body and having a very powerful instantaneous, negative trauma, like response to anything that reminds you of these past experiences.
So, embodiment work and focusing on the body and those sensations and moving them along so that I can have a reaction that feels manageable to stressful things is what I'm focused on right now. So, I’m so excited to have Marina here, Marina works with them, body meant and trauma of all kinds. The things that Marina discusses, and this episode will be useful for everyone, but very useful for somebody working with trauma, you've already gotten other treatment for that you still aren't feeling peace around, because the embodiment piece has been missing from your healing work so far.
This is such a good conversation. Let's jump right in.
Body Liberation for All Theme
Yeah. They might try to put you in a box, tell them that you don't accept when the world is tripping out tell them that you love yourself. Hey, Hey, smile on them live your life just like you like it is.
It’s your party negativity is not invited. For my queer folks, for my trans, people of color, let your voice be heard. Look in the mirror and say that it's time to put me first. You born to win. Head up high with confidence. This show is for everyone. So I thank you for tuning in. Let's go.
Dalia: Hello. Thank you for being on the show.
Marina: Yeah. Thanks for having me so excited to have this conversation.
Dalia: I am excited, always to connect with other folks of color from all over the world, but in particular folks of color that do healing work that come from different cultural backgrounds, especially anybody connected to the diaspora. I just get super excited about that, because it's interesting to me to see how as you change, as you kind of become part of the country that your ancestors were pulled into and you become a blend of the different peoples that are from there. And then the people who colonize that area, we all have really interesting ways of manifesting some of the old healing traditions, you know, that we have no possible conscious way of connecting to.
It's just beautiful to see how nothing is ever lost and keep coming back to the surface and it looks different on different people and in different parts of the world.
Marina: Yeah. I love that cause I love that integration of the different ways that we can approach healing and really reclaiming the old ways of healing that have big been parts of generations of the original people of the planet.
Dalia: Right. Right, exactly. So I know you're based in the U S now and you're on the west coast. But can you tell us a little bit about where you were raised and when you were growing up, did you have a connection to healing practices or what was that relationship like with you?
Marina: Yeah. Yeah, so I was raised in Brazil that's where I'm from and I think that's part of my upbringing was connected to receiving what we can call unusual healing. There are many people who are, I don't even know how to say this in English I think it would be something like ‘the blessers’. So these old grandmas who actually developed such a beautiful connection with themselves and their intuition and their spiritual guides that they can bless other people. And we’d go there to receive a blessing. Then they share something that they feel called to share around the ways that you are treating yourself. The food you are eating the people that you're hanging out with and things that you could do so that you would find more balance in your life.
So this is a big thing in Brazil, especially in communities where people are more integrated socially. So like Black communities, people who live in what we can call marginalized neighborhoods or something. And this has always been part of my life. I never even thought of a life without it.
That's what you do. You feel you're feeling off. You're not so sure. You are feeling sad then you communicate with one of these grandmas, they will share their wisdom. So that is one thing, the other is that my mom was always into what we can call integrative medicine.
She was always into floral therapy, healing, our body and spirit, good eating habits, macrobiotic, whole food products, and things like that. So for me, I think part of my growing up was learning that our bodies have this self-healing capacity. That it's a matter of us being patient enough and aware enough to connect with it intentionally so that we can find ways to notice what a disease is trying to tell us, what a discomfort is trying to show us. To find ways to address the environment that is creating the disease, the environment that is creating discomfort not just the symptoms.
Dalia: Now it makes so much sense, but you said something really crucial it's being patient enough to wait for it to work because that I think is one of the hallmarks between western medication when we approach our symptoms that way. And sometimes those don't even work as quickly as you want them to, but typically you can expect to see a change maybe that day, maybe in a week, maybe two weeks and a lot of other approaches because you're not just putting a band-aid on one symptom, you're trying to get to the root of the problem, it can take longer. So in a culture where we feel like we don't even have time to sit down and feel unwell. We don't have time to take one day off, then what do we do? So, what has it been like for you coming to the U.S. do you feel a big difference in the pace that we're living at running counter to the way the human body actually functions and thrives?
Marina: Oh my God. That was shocking. That was really shocking. To really notice this shift in the speed at which things happen here. Right. So, I don't know if I can speak for all Brazilians, but in our culture in general, we have this idea of the U.S as the land of opportunity, right? Hollywood sales that so beautifully to us.
So you come here, you're nobody, you come with a dollar in your pocket and then you become this millionaire, blah, blah, blah. You know, and also the fact that in order to do so, there are no boundaries, no limits to the amount of work that you do. Because if you want to be a self-made millionaire you have to put all of yourself in it.
Right? So there is this image, at least for me about the U.S. but it was not until I actually moved in here, and I didn't come here for work or anything. I came to the U.S. for love because my husband is American and that's how we ended up here. So it was very interesting to notice that everything is so fast.
It's boom, boom, boom. Now, now, now, yesterday, it's not today its yesterday. And no wonder people are so stressed out. No wonder people are so disconnected from themselves. No wonder people feel so lonely because they can not even connect with themselves much less meaningfully connect with others, right?
So, when you say that here people don't have the time to rest or to take a day off. I would say, well, maybe that's actually why people are getting so sick. Maybe that's actually why people are feeling so, so many discomforts on a physical level, but also on a mental health level.
Dalia: Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. And when we look at, when scientists look at other cultural groups that are living a lot longer than the average person in the United States, that's always a factor like prioritizing connecting to people, communicating with people and not prioritizing work over all other things, but that is a very, very American thing.
If you're not working, then who are you? And even when people introduce themselves, their identity centered around, do you do? And I can understand that if what you do is something that you were called to do like if your healer, your preacher, your something that's central to your belief system.
Okay, fine. I can understand that. But a lot of times people leave. Something that just signals to other people. I earn money and I work long hours because it has become a value here.
You mentioned something really interesting when we were talking before the call, when we were just getting to know each other, after we'd come across each other in a group it's focused on decolonizing your mindset around business, and it's led by an American person who really has made a difference in my life in how she explains how so much of what we believe about how business must be done. It's not the only way. And talking to you and hearing about how you've noticed that people who can't seem to get into their body who have issues with embodiment and that causes problems throughout your life.
And maybe on some level, I knew that, but nowhere near the level that you were explaining. So can you tell us about the work that you do and then we'll talk about how did he ended up doing this?
Marina: Yeah, so I like to call myself an embodiment coach and a somatic healer. The work that I do, basically it should help people reconnect with their bodies. It is to walk back into this connection with self with intention, with awareness, with patients, with care that this body is sharing information all the time. That this body is much wiser than the mind at times and it's telling us what to do, how to do at what pace we should be doing things.
If we learn to integrate that that with the mind, the work that I do doesn't mean this disregarding the mind, it's about integration. It's about the combination of mind and body, and of course, giving space to spirituality in that connection. But to really allow people to notice that we can not just function from the neck up.
We can not just live our lives, thinking that we can think ourselves out of a disease, out of a discomfort out of, you know, all the things that people have been experience thing in terms of physical and mental. We actually need to be able to feel those in our bodies and from this space, learn to reconnect to make the changes that our bodies need so that we can lead a healthier life.
That is the gist of it. The big part, the big picture of it. And there is the trauma healing component of my work, because if we study what research has been showing us trauma lives in our bodies, right?
Trauma is not the experience. Trauma is actually our body's perception of or reaction to a life-threatening experience, to something that was too intense, too overwhelming, too difficult to handle.
And then our bodies trap that information and start responding to events, freeze, fight, flight, fawn mode. So in order to heal evil trauma also should integrate the the body. We cannot talk ourselves out of trauma, right? Talking about trauma is only a piece of the healing process that happens when you're a further ahead in your healing.
First it's around connecting with your body, noticing how your body's responding to traumatic experiences and then finding ways to regulate your nervous system to discharge some of the energy of that trauma so that your body can find balance again. Right? So, but the beginning has to be about embodiment. It has to start with recognizing tension in the body and then from there we develop a somatic to healing trauma. If that makes sense…
Dalia: It does make sense. When I read The Body Keeps the Score. I felt like some of it, maybe we all knew intuitively, tiny bit. Right. But then to see someone study how deep the lasting effect is on the physical body when you're in a situation where you feel you have no control, or you literally have no control, and you're afraid you're going to die, that you could even lose sensation in extremities that had nothing to do with the incident. And we all heard about adverse childhood experiences and how that shortens your lifespan, not as a rule, but your chances are higher if you never have an opportunity to heal what that experience did to your body, how your body internalized, all of that fear. How did you even realize this was an area you wanted to work in? Because even if you interacted a lot with healers as a child, sometimes it's hard to see yourself that way, especially if those healers were like people almost had to live the experience, like you said, they're old grandmas, so it's like they took years and years and years to get it. So when did you understand that you, as a young person could also be working in a healing space?
Marina: Yeah. Well, I think it's a combination of factors first. My mom is a psychologist, which is a healing modality in a way. So I had that beautiful example and home. And I have been to healers myself to view my body, to heal my own traumas and to actually get to know myself better because healing is also about self-development. It's not just about feeling one specific thing, right? It's about learning more about ourselves. And for me, when I started, I was always curious about so many things in life.
And I started learning more about holistic sexuality. I've started doing workshops and programs and courses to learn, to recognize my body in a more loving and even spiritual perspective of this body as a sacred temple. And to for me to really tap into the deeper knowing of who I am in the deeper knowing of who I am in my mind, that leads me to reconnect with my spiritual self, right.
And by doing so I've found so much healing for myself. I've found so much empowerment for myself as a Black woman in a Latin country. Empowerment is a big, big word for us, right? Because of that so many things started shifting for me in terms of how I perceived myself, how I perceived the relationships that I had not just with other men, but the relationships that I had with friends, with family, the relationships I had that work. And so I was an executive in the corporate world that is dominated by white, straight, very conservative man, interesting place. And then noticing that I didn't fit there anymore.
That environment was not fulfilling me anymore. And, then I had this inner calling, this inner knowing that, you know, my life is going to change a lot and actually I want to dedicate myself to supporting other women and non-binary people who have vulvas, because that's what I understand more of the female body that the vulvaed body.
And then I started transitioning and studying. I already had the business MBA because I was in business for 14 years and then started shifting gears into coaching. I did the ontological coaching training in Brazil at the same time. I got married to move here and did my sex love and relationship coaching training here.
And I've been supporting people since then. And it's been fabulous. And the idea that coming back to the body and connecting with sexuality, sexual desires, eroticism, what I understood that most people would come up with, come across traumas there, you know, things even that were healed or that were forgotten, because that's how the mind works as well.
Our brains protect us so much that they make us forget some of the traumatic experiences that so many of us have gone through. And this became a very big passion of mine to really be able to support women, to feel their central traumas. And it's been a very beautiful journey for me, very humbling as well. I feel very honored to be supporting people in, in this path and yeah, that's what I've been doing.
Dalia: It's amazing to me, how many entry points there can be to starting to reconnect to your body and how deep the symptoms go when you are disconnected. Because even though with my work as a holistic dietitian, I'm helping people use food and listening to their hunger, physical, and emotional hunger to reconnect to what their body's trying to tell them.
I had never thought about how many relationships will need to fall away if you actually start listening to what your body's telling you. And that, that in itself might be a reason why some people don't want to reconnect to their body because they wonder how will my life have to change if I actually listen to myself.
And what will that feel like? Is that something that is a source of resistance you come across and people
Marina: Yeah so much. I can see the faces of some people with shared that with me, like, oh, well who will I become then? If I go this deep into myself, I will have to face things that I am comfortably hiding under a rug, you know, so that I can live the way I've been living.
It's a path of truth. It’s a path of really facing the truth of who we are. And once you've faced the truths, making that judgements that we need to make in life to live in a way that is more fulfilling, right, and more fulfilling for whatever it looks like to a given person.
It's a path of tapping into one's authenticity. And I don't think everybody's prepared for that and that's okay. That's okay.
Dalia: Now, how long did it take you to accept that? Because that's something I feel like I struggle with. When I'm not ready to change, then it's fine. But when other people aren’t ready to change and I see where something could be of service. I'm just like, I don't get it. I don't get it. So when did you understand that?
Marina: When I really started understanding trauma, so I'm taking the somatic experiencing training, and this is focused on trauma healing from a somatic perspective. The deeper I went into understanding how trauma acts in our bodies and our minds in our behaviors in the way that we are enabled to lead our lives the more compassion I felt in my heart for myself and for those around me. So when I'm aware that trauma exists. So many people have trauma and they have no idea so there is a space in my heart that can easily understand why it is so scary to go through change.
Why it is so scary to connect with your body because your body has overwhelming and difficult memories stored there. So it makes a lot of sense for me when a person shares, Well, I, I don't know if I can live more lovingly, you know, this is not good. I'm not happy, but that's the way I've been living for so many years for so many decades. And I don't wish I can make that change.
When I hear someone say that for me, it's like, huh, there is some wound there that might be so scary and so painful that this person is ready to touch it. For me, that's invites my radical acceptance of who people are and where they're on their journeys. Because it is not easy, right?
It's not easy repeating patterns over and over again that are painful, that are harmful, that hurts you, that keep you small and keep you in abusive relationships for that matter. But it's also not easy to break free of that. Right? I think there is a path that can only happen when people are ready.
So like whenever I'm talking to someone who wants to work with me for the first time and heal child wounds, most people working with me are focusing on healing sexual trauma. My first questions is why now, so I can understand the motivation that the person has. Like some people live with a traumatic memory for 20 years, 30 years, and then they come okay, I want to, I want to look at it and I want to heal this. My question is why now?
What shows you that you're prepared to deal with it right now? And a lot of times it is because people have had the opportunity to walk through a path of self-development or some lighter kind of healing and then they see that they can handle this, this big transformation.
And I think that when people say, oh, I'm scared. I don't know what's going to happen. What I will become? Maybe they have some steps to take before Does that make sense?
Dalia: That makes so much sense.
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Dalia: I saw recently online someone who does consulting, not necessarily healing work, made a point that just because someone isn't ready to work with you, it doesn't mean they don't think that what you offer is powerful or valuable.
But if it's a service that requires a partnership with the client that requires them to also participate in the process, they may not want to work with you because they don't yet believe they can complete their end of the relationship. And I had never really thought about some of us offer services that are not for people at the start of their journey.
And that's also incredibly important. So I see things all the time where I'm like, wow, this is so popular. Something that someone's offering, but I'm like, but it feels like it's on the surface. And for me, it wouldn't take me deep enough to get to another level, but I've been obsessed with personal development and healing since I was in my early, early teens.
So of course that stuff doesn't appeal to me anymore because that's not where I am on my journey. So learning to respect where people are and to stop wanting to kind of force healing on people has been a process.
Marina: Yeah. Yeah. And it makes so much sense because everybody has to start somewhere really. And also there is a part of me, I don't want people were not ready to do the work to actually hire me 'cause then it's not effective.
You know, if people are not ready to take responsibility for their healing to understand that the healing process is bumpy, it's not like a walk in the park, it’s not full of flowers, right? It's, it's hard at times, depending on the amount of trauma there, the depth of the wounds it's hard.
And if people don't have some of, even that stability in their lives to hold them through that. I prefer that first they do some other work. Some foundational work. And then they come when they're ready, because that's where I can serve them in my best. I can really be of service to them as opposed to someone who is not ready.
Dalia: Right. What might that foundational work look like for some people? Cause I have heard from some people that are really worried about their own health, someone who's multiple people because you know, so many people have survived, sexual abuse as children. So, so many people and a lot of these people in my personal life are tired of living with the effects of having to distance themselves from their body to be safe and to feel comfortable, but they don't feel ready and they want to be ready and they don't know what that in-between space looks like.
How do you bridge that gap or figure out what might be a step for you?
Marina: Yeah. So I am going to use the same book.
That you brought us as an example. The Body Keeps the Score, which is an amazing read Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk wrote the book. He mentioned that yoga, theater, acting classes, dancing, classes in like martial arts, things that involve the body are great ways for people to start befriending their bodies and coming back in a connection that it's not targeted at healing, their trauma.
So it's not a therapeutic work, but it is bringing them back. So if you're doing yoga poses you need to be aware of what you're doing. If you're acting you're aware not just of yourself, but of the, all their actors around you, in your positioning in relation to them on stage. All of this contributes for a person to slowly come back to a possible relationship with their bodies, even when their bodies are still carrying so much memories of trauma. They're coming to a more deep work into embodiment work in somatic healing. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Dalia: Yeah.
Marina: For some people, it's actually some talk therapy, some workshops, women's circles, community circles, you know, things that invite people to connect little by little to who they are, their feelings, their emotions, their expectations of community, relationships. Even if it’s a more shallow level, even if it's not very deep, but it opens the way to come to an environment for somatic healing being a little bit more prepared, if that makes sense.
Dalia: Yeah, that does.
Marina: If you look at The Body Keeps the Score he's sharing some amazing results of clients and patients who are suffering like post-traumatic syndrome. I don't like to say disorder. I think it's an injury. It's not a disorder. And being able to know slowly come back to themselves with yoga, acting, martial arts, qigong and things like that.
So that would be my suggestion for people who want to start. You know, start light, but with things that are inviting you inwards, You know, and then you go into a deeper process. If that makes sense.
Dalia: That does make sense. Have you found that for people who are maybe feeling uncomfortable in their body because their gender identity and their assigned gender doesn't match are the same interventions helpful?
And if so, how do people get to that point where, okay, maybe you still have other things you need to do to feel totally at home in your body, like maybe gender affirming surgeries and your future, but you can't do it now.
How do you make friends with the body that you feel like isn't yours and you know?
Marina: My training in somatic experience is such a beautiful invitation to reconnecting befriending and getting curious with the body and the physiology and the nervous system regulation and all of it that I can only imagine how a person who is not, who doesn’t feel this body really represents their identity and how they want to express in the world. This would be like invaluable for someone to have a space with a qualified professional to explore how they feel about their bodies. Right?
So for example, for a person who was born with a vagina in actually would prefer to have a penis. Perhaps exploring the relationship with that vagina first so they can get into the core, the deepest part of their desire for a penis, then from that, knowing that it's not just a rational knowing, but it's a felt knowing in their bodies start making, you know, designing the steps to get what they want.
So I know many practitioners who specialize in trans and gender nonconforming and non-binary people doing somatic work and the things that they share is like, it's amazing. It's amazing. This populations could benefit a lot from somatic work, because there's so much about the gender identity and expansion that is stuck in the body. Right.
So how can we, again, how can we have these conversations while we actually ignore the body, while we actually ignore the object of our discomfort of our disalignment? Right? So if we're, if I have boobs and I'm uncomfortable with boobs, it's not just thinking about this, it’s really addressing the boobs in the body, how do you feel about it. What is some sensations that comes to you when you connect with that?Right. And from there finding what it is that this body really wants to express.
And for people who cannot go and have surgery and make the changes that they want right away, I think, I think then the coaching way of addressing things. It's like, okay, what can we do now that can be helpful for now that can be supportive for now.
And what are the steps that we need to take in order for you to achieve this bigger desire to do whatever it is that you want to, you know, and then I think it's really about the coaching way of reaching a goal of connecting with the desires that are within the desire that that's living the wisdom of the body.
Dalia: Yeah. Oh, that makes sense to me. And I think has people don't talk about the experience of being gender nonconforming, but finding a way to still connect to your body 'cause they don't talk about it enough. It almost feels like, oh, well, what if it's not possible for me to be friendly with my body while I feel like simultaneously it betrayed me around the time of puberty, but it's encouraging to know that other people who are trans, who are non-binary are doing this work and feeling the benefits.
Marina: Yeah. It's really, it is really powerful. It is really powerful because then all the transformations that you end up performing in your body come from a place of deep understanding, acceptance and love for who you are. Right. And then the body starts reflecting that.
So as opposed to a place of rejection, you know, it's really all honoring who you are, your real identity. And then the body is slowly, starts conforming to the way that we want the world to perceive you, that you want to see yourself. But yeah,
Dalia: That feels so subtle, but that resonates the idea that, it's just so interesting, I think it's that framing from kind of a binary perspective that it almost has to be rejection, but in reality, it is simultaneously a deep acceptance of who you are of knowing that you are not cis-gender person and allowing that to take form in your life. However it's supposed to take form for you.
Yeah. That's a, that's a powerful perspective shift. Yeah.
Marina: It's, it's shaped seeing through the lens of love. And for me, that's where the beauty lives. So I love who I am. And although the world thought, because I have a vagina and I should be a woman, I say no to that. And out of love for who I am, I express my gender the way that it makes sense to me, that the way that is true, not only in my life but in the core of who I am in the core of my body. And this is expressing from a place of love, pure love, radical love, actually.
Dalia: Yeah. Ooh, that is powerful. In an actual session what might somatic healing look like when you do it with a guide? What is that?
Marina: Yeah, it can look like a lot of things, but basically. A session can start with a conversation.
So for example, if I'm working with someone keening sexual trauma, it's not a conversation about what happened, you know, revisiting the past. It's not about that. It's about noticing the patterns, how you are feeling. What are things that are working for you? What are things that are not working?
So many people who experienced sexual trauma have a very and hard time with relationships with romantic relationships, with intimacy, with having sex.Right? So we will have a conversation around that and then invite the body to the conversation. So when you think about relating to someone new, how does your body react? Oh, I noticed contraction. I noticed that heartbeat goes high and I feel the temperature change.
All right. And then from there addressing the sensations. Right? So giving space for those sensations first to be felt to be seen, to be prepared and also using some somatic, um, movement, sounds, breathing, making movements with your body, shaking, dancing, all kinds of things so that those sensations can have a space to, to be really well not just released, but to be moved, to be expressed, and then coming back into stillness and laying and giving space and the time for your nervous system to find some regulation, to discharge some of the energy that it is ready to discharge. And then another way, what else are we talking about and how are we going to address this? So it's, it's always, um, almost like a back and forth conversation. So the rational mind, you know, storytelling narratives and then noticing the body, what is happening here? Right?
Of course, this is a very simplistic way of saying how this works, but in reality, this takes people into such a deep place of inner knowing of inner understanding. And that's where healing is. You know, healing is not in my hands as the somatic healer. Healing is inside the person looking for it.
So as a somatic healer I guide the person into noticing into being. And of course, using my own way of doing that, really allowing the person to know that it's okay to feel what they're feeling. But they have confidence that they're not alone.
And that the body is so wise it's so wise and knows what to do. And slowly because we're healing the present because we're healing our relationships to ourselves right here right now, slowly we build some strength in our emotional body, our physical body in the ways that we can experience intense sensations, thoughts, emotions, feelings, that's going back into past traumatic memories become possible.
And then we can find integration. We can renegotiate that experience if that makes sense. So healing trauma, it's about feeling now healing the body now so that you can renegotiate what's happened in the past.
Dalia: Oh yeah. That's such a clear description. I know. As we age, we stop using our bodies are moving our bodies and ways that are maybe unpredictable.
So I could see you would need a guide to even do that. You can see children intuitively release tension after unpleasant things happen to them. Assuming it's a small and manageable negative experience, you know, but they do it in ways that you would never think to do in an office setting. After you have a conversation that makes you feel some type of way.
So it's fascinating to know who we can go to, to recapture those skills that we forgotten and probably a bunch we've never heard of before as well. Where do people find you?
Marina: I invite everybody to come to my website https://marinanabao.com/. I think you're going to type this.
Dalia: I'll put it in the show notes.
Marina: Yes. I'm a little bit old school. I really like keeping my website updated. All the information is there. And also Instagram @marinanabao. I'm not there every day, but I'm there every week. Sharing a little bits of inspiration, little bits of what I do. And for folks will want to get to know my work better if you are called to work with me I offer a free conversation so that we can get to know each other.
I can understand what people are looking for. We can see find the best person for them and from there we can start a coaching and somatic healing process.
Dalia: Thank you so much for coming on. I only have one final question. If there was one thing that you could say, and everyone would instantly understand it and internalize it for the rest of their lives.
What's something you would like for everyone to know?
Marina: the chains of trauma don't need to be the way that you lead your life forever. You have right here right now, regardless of what happened, regardless of how hard it was, you have the capacity to heal, to live a life that is filled with joy, with radiance, with vitality, and you can fully thrive. I think that knowing that we have this self-healing capacity and that our bodies are the key to that our bodies are pure medicine, that is what I really want people to know.
Dalia: That’s beautiful.
I love being able to discuss things that really aren't on everybody's radar as a healing tool, and very often and indigenous cultures you'll notice that healing work always involves a physical element, an embodied element, but because many of us live in areas where disconnection from the body is the status quo it's frequently left out of the healing process.
I love the idea of reclaiming our connection to our old ways and also incorporating information from the collective. Because the African diaspora is now spread all over the world, all of us have integrated with the local cultures in many different ways. Thanks to the internet as well, we are able to create hybrid versions of healing practices that work for us that are grounded in what our ancestors did, but are also a blend of what people in our part of the world are using. This is something that can evolve over time using your intuition and doing what feels right for you.
I personally use all kinds of quote unquote modern healing tools like cognitive behavioral therapy, pharmaceuticals that support mental wellbeing and embodiment work and meditation. I approach my wildness with all cylinders firing. I am interested in anything that has the potential to enhance my experience of life with a minimal to acceptable level of risk. Even holistic health practices sometimes come with a little bit of brisk, but I love how many different embodiment practices are totally gentle with minimal risk. So this is an under-utilized tool that I'm sure we're going to see more and more of.
Be sure to check out Marina. I have the link to her website in the show notes. Marina is doing amazing work and is taking on clients at this time. https://marinanabao.com/
Remember the only fee for the show is that you share it with others. Anytime you hear something useful, and around here, that is every episode.
So feel free to share the episode on IG on Facebook, wherever you hangout online and let everybody know what you got out of the episode. Also, you can always like, and review the show on iTunes so that it's easy for other people to find.
Thank you in advance for helping this message reach more folks that need it.
Also Decolonizing Wellness is now available for order.
Decolonizing Wellness is perfect for you if you enjoy the themes I talk about here, it's focused on QTBIPOC looking to heal their relationship with their self image and their relationship with food. Even if you feel like you have a peaceful relationship with food I go a little deeper there and look at using food and eating as a mindfulness tool and a self-empowerment tool.
So there's something there for all of us.
I hope you'll check it out and let me know what you thought. Thank you for joining me. I will see you next time.
Episode edited and produced by Unapologetic Amplified
Originally posted at https://daliakinsey.substack.com/p/reclaiming-body-positivity-with-jade
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Imagine a world where wellness isn't one-size-fits-all but a colorful tapestry that celebrates every hue and curve of our diverse communities. That's where "Decolonizing Wellness" steps in. If you're ready to embark on a journey of self-acceptance and body liberation, this is your guidebook. Together, let's turn the page on outdated wellness narratives and step into a world where health and happiness are accessible to all.
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