The Narratives we Live By ~ Part 2

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Part 2 ~ The Body Remembers

It often begins as a whisper,

A subtle tension in the jaw,

A sigh you do not notice,

A tightening in the chest that you call tiredness or age

Or just another busy day.

But the body remembers.

It remembers what you were not able to say.

It holds the weight of moments you survived.

It carries the rage that had no safe place to land,

The grief that stayed unspoken,

The shame you tucked away.

The body waits.

At first gently,

Until finally it screams

And that is when we start to pay attention.

We believe that healing is a mental task,

That if we understand enough, if we think clearly,

we will find our way back.

But the truth is that the body holds our stories, too.

Even the hidden ones. Especially those.

When stories stay buried, they do not disappear.

They weave themselves into our posture, our digestion, our breath.

They shape how we show up in relationships,

How we set boundaries or not

How we move through the world.

Some stories are inherited.

Some are layered.

Some were never told,

And so, they never had the chance to loosen their grip.

For years I carried my story in my breath.

Not knowing that the asthma I had lived with since childhood may have been more than a physiological condition.

Perhaps it was the body’s response to stress, fear, and anticipation.

Perhaps I was holding my breath, waiting for something to go wrong.

And in doing so, I forgot how to breathe fully, how to soften into my own being.

Healing began slowly.

A gradual softening, a return to presence, a listening.

“Let my gardens speak for me when I am gone. Let them speak in coloured whispers of all the beauty I have seen, and felt, and lived. Let them speak of how much death had to find me, how many hard seasons it took to make me a living, breathing thing.”— Emory Hall, Come Sit by My Garden

To heal is not to fix.

It is to remember.

It is to honour what the body has held, and to allow the stories to rise and reshape.

And maybe, just maybe, we do not need to carry them alone.

Maybe, when told, they begin to lighten.

Maybe they become the soil from which something new can grow.

Your body holds the truth

Let it speak.

Let your breath guide the way back

Let your story become your medicine.

"What will become of this story inside my chest? Will I excavate it from my bones, give it light, water, and air? Let it bloom into a garden of flowers in your name? Or will I let it stay and let you bury me? This is the question I am always asking myself: What will become of my stories—gardens or graveyards"? ~ Emory Hall, The Photosynthesis of Healing

This reflection is a two-part series exploring the stories we carry and how we begin to return to ourselves, through them. If this resonates with you, you are warmly invited to join “Remembering” - a gentle gathering that weaves breath, movement, and story as a path toward reconnection. Details to follow soon.

With Gratitude

Surayya Hassan ~ The Holding Space