Grace in the Flesh: Why Healing Must Be Embodied
Introduction: The Limits of Talk Therapy
What does it truly mean to heal?
I hope by the end of this reflection, you’ll have a clearer, deeper answer to that question.
As the intro title suggests, we’re exploring what psychotherapy can look like beyond the traditional “talk therapy” model. But before we begin, let me be clear—I am not dismissing the value of talk therapy. Talking is profoundly therapeutic. It gives words to our pain, helps us process emotions, and connects us to others. But healing is about more than just talking.
Let me explain.
Neuroscience affirms that when we talk about our struggles, we engage the prefrontal cortex—the part of our brain responsible for reasoning, reflection, and meaning-making. Long before neuroscience confirmed this, human intuition and Divine Revelation pointed us toward the necessity of ordering our inner world toward something greater than ourselves. Thinking and speaking about our experiences are vital; without them, we remain stagnant in our healing and disconnected from our purpose. As Catholics, we find this integration through the Sacraments, where grace touches both soul and body.
Yet.
Could it be that in our impatience to ascend spiritually, we unintentionally diminish the ways grace is meant to work through our whole being—body, mind, and soul?
See, we are more than just our thoughts. More than just our spirits. Though the spiritual dimension is often regarded as the “higher” aspect of human nature, we cannot bypass the fact that we are embodied spirits—or said another way, spiritual bodies. The mind is the meeting ground of these two realities, and it is inseparably linked to our neurological and physiological wellbeing. In other words, our spiritual health is only accessible insofar as our mind and body are integrated.
We are not angels. We are human. And thank God for that.
Because being human means we don’t just exist—we experience. We feel, we taste, we weep, we laugh. We long, we ache, we hope. We are called to live fully—body, mind, and spirit in harmony. And when we live out of balance, favoring one while neglecting the others, we become as frail as dust. Not even dust, for dust at least has substance. To live only in the body, or only in the mind, or only in the spirit is to be less than fully alive. It is to exist as a corpse, a machine, or a ghost—rather than a breathing, feeling, hoping, healing human being.
So here’s my question for you:
What if healing requires more than just talking?
If you take one thing from this today, let it be this:
True healing must always include the body, mind, and spirit.
Let that settle in.
And if you’re not convinced—or even more confused—keep reading. I’ll show you what I mean.
The Body Remembers: Trauma & the Nervous System
If healing were only a matter of understanding our wounds, then talk therapy alone would be enough. We could think and speak our way into recovery.
But reality tells a different story.
Our bodies remember what our minds try to forget.
Neuroscientist and trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk famously wrote, "The body keeps the score."
What he means is that trauma doesn’t just live in our thoughts—it resides in the body, in the nervous system, in the very fibers of our being.
When we experience overwhelming stress, our nervous system goes into survival mode—fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. These are automatic, subconscious responses that our bodies engage to protect us from perceived threats. Let’s briefly break them down:
Fight: When we perceive a threat, our body may prepare to fight back. This response increases adrenaline, heart rate, and muscle tension, preparing the body for action.
Flight: If fighting feels impossible or unsafe, our body may trigger a flight response, preparing us to run away from danger. This also ramps up adrenaline and focuses our energy on escaping.
Freeze: In some situations, the body may feel immobilized or "frozen," especially when fight or flight is not an option. The freeze response can manifest as dissociation, numbness, or a sense of being stuck.
Fawn: This is a less recognized response, where a person may try to appease or placate the threat in an attempt to gain safety. This can involve people-pleasing behaviors, attempting to avoid conflict, or overly adapting to others’ needs.
If this stress is unresolved (precisely because there is no safe place and person to resolve it with) it becomes embedded in the body, often leading to chronic tension, anxiety, dissociation, and even physical symptoms like pain, fatigue, or autoimmune issues.
Traditional talk therapy engages the prefrontal cortex—the rational, meaning-making part of the brain. While our beliefs and thoughts are shaped by trauma too, trauma also bypasses the cortical region and is instead stored in deeper, more primal areas of the brain, such as the limbic system and brainstem, as well as in the bidirectional neural circuitry through the vagus nerve with the eyes, ears, gut, muscles, fascia, and endocrine systems.
This is why simply talking about our pain can sometimes feel like not enough.
True healing must also engage the nervous system where the wounds actually live.
Embodiment: The Missing Piece in Healing
Embodiment is the practice of inhabiting our bodies fully—feeling, sensing, and being present within our physical form.
It is the process of reclaiming what trauma, chronic stress, or broken relationships have fractured.
It is the slow practice of coming back to feeling ourselves again, piece by piece.
It is the patient work of discovering for the first time what it means to be not just a mind and spirit, but a whole person—with feelings, sensations, and relationships trauma has isolated us from to keep us alive.
It is being in touch again.
If the nervous system is dysregulated, our ability to heal is impaired. Somatic therapies—such as breathwork, movement, and grounding techniques—offer ways to restore balance to the nervous system, allowing the body to release stored trauma and return to a state of safety.
Science confirms this. Practices like mindful movement, breathwork, and body-based therapies have been shown to regulate the autonomic nervous system, increase vagal tonality, reduce cortisol (the stress hormone), and promote neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to rewire efficiently and adaptively to stress. This in turn, increases a person’s overall window of tolerance (the threshold of stress a person can withstand before being overwhelmed or shutting down). Expanding the window of tolerance is critical for anyone’s wellbeing, but is especially critical for stabilizing someone before, during, and after deeper trauma work.
However, many embodiment practices have been popularized through Eastern traditions or New Age frameworks, which can make many Christians hesitant to engage with them.
The key distinction here is that embodiment itself is not exclusive to any one culture or philosophy — it is a biological and neurological reality of being human.
Neuroscientific research validates that movement, breath, and bodily awareness are essential for healing and self-regulation, regardless of their historical associations.
As Catholics and Christians, we can practice embodiment in a way that is both theologically sound and scientifically informed. We do not need to abandon our faith to engage with our bodies;
rather…
We can integrate embodiment into our spiritual lives in a way that honors our Catholic understanding of the human person as a union of body and soul.
Healing in a Catholic Framework: The Body & Soul Connection
For Christians, the body is not secondary to the spiritual life—it is integral. The Incarnation itself testifies to this: God did not save us by merely speaking truth into existence. He took on flesh. He touched, healed, walked, wept, suffered, and rose.
Our faith is profoundly embodied—
we kneel,
receive the Eucharist,
anoint with oil,
cross ourselves,
fast and feast.
These are not mere rituals; they are ways we encounter grace through the body.
If God designed us as body-soul beings, then healing must involve both. This is why practices like breath prayer, the Rosary, Eucharistic Adoration, and even trauma-informed movement can be powerful avenues of restoration. They engage the whole person—mind, body, and spirit—in the process of healing.
Yet, many Christians have been conditioned to view the body with suspicion, as if it were merely an obstacle to holiness rather than a vessel of divine grace. But to neglect the body in healing is to neglect a part of ourselves that God Himself chose to inhabit.
Yet, we don’t have many examples around us of how to practically do this. What is unknown can remain scary and out of reach.
Practical Ways to Integrate Embodied Healing
So, what does it look like to integrate the body into healing? Here are a few practical starting points:
Grounding Techniques – Engage your senses: notice textures, sounds, scents. Press your feet into the ground. These small acts help anchor the nervous system in the present moment.
Breath Prayer – Sync slow, deep breathing with a simple prayer (e.g., inhaling "Jesus, have mercy" and exhaling "on me, your beloved"). This calms the nervous system while inviting God into the moment.
Trauma-Informed Movement – Practices like gentle stretching, mindful movement, intentional postures, or even walking with intentional awareness help release stored tension.
Vocalization & Humming – The vagus nerve, which regulates the nervous system, is activated by sound. Humming, chanting, or singing can be deeply regulating.
Sacramental Life – Engage in the physicality of the Sacraments with deeper awareness—feeling the sensation of the water as you bless yourself with the Baptismal Holy Water, the taste of the Eucharist, the laying on of hands in Confession and Anointing of the sick. You might even try to notice how different postures at Mass make you feel.
Healing is not just about reframing our thoughts. It is about restoring the body, mind, and soul to their proper harmony.
Conclusion: A New Path to Healing
If you’ve ever felt like healing has stalled despite all your thinking, talking, and praying—consider this:
maybe you’ve unintentionally left part of yourself behind.
Healing is not just an intellectual or spiritual process; it is an embodied journey.
We are not meant to live disembodied—trapped in our thoughts, disconnected from our sensations, bypassing our physical needs in pursuit of spiritual ideals.
We are called to be fully alive, fully present, fully integrated.
And to heal is to reclaim that wholeness.
If this resonates, I invite you to take one small step toward embodied healing today. Maybe it’s as simple as noticing your breath, stretching, or engaging in prayer with your whole being. Or maybe it’s seeking out embodied trauma therapy to begin your healing process in a deeper, personalized way.
Wherever you begin, let it be a step toward integration—toward grace in the flesh.
