Why Holistic Healing Must Include the Body
We Cannot Talk About Holistic Healing Without Talking About the Body
So much of traditional mental health care has taught us to begin with the mind. We examine thoughts, identify patterns, name emotions, and work to understand the stories shaping our lives. This work matters. Insight can be powerful. Language can help us make meaning of experiences that once felt confusing or unspeakable.
But many people eventually discover that understanding what happened is not always the same as feeling different inside their bodies.
We can know that we are safe and still feel braced for danger. We can understand that rest is necessary and still struggle to slow down. We can identify a trigger and still feel our heart race, our breath change, or our muscles tighten before we have time to think.
This is why healing cannot remain exclusively cognitive. The body is not merely carrying the mind from one place to another. It is participating in our experience of stress, safety, connection, memory, grief, joy, and healing.
What Does Somatics Mean?
Your Somatics invites us to pay attention to lived experience through the body. It includes awareness of sensation, movement, posture, breath, tension, temperature, impulses, boundaries, and the ways our nervous system responds to the world around us.
A somatic approach does not require us to abandon conversation or insight. It asks us to expand the conversation.
Instead of only asking, “What do you think about this?” we may also ask, “What do you notice happening in your body as you speak about this?”
Instead of assuming that quietness equals calm, we become curious about whether the body feels settled, frozen, guarded, disconnected, or genuinely at ease.
The Body Is Not a Problem to Fix
Trauma-informed body-based work should never become another way to pressure people into performing wellness.
There is no single breath, posture, movement, or grounding exercise that will feel supportive for everyone. A practice that helps one person feel present may make another person feel more activated or exposed.
Ethical somatic work centers choice, consent, pacing, culture, context, and relationship. It allows people to notice without demanding that they change what they notice. It honors protective responses rather than treating the body as if it has failed.
It also requires therapists and helping professionals to remain aware of their competence and scope of practice.
Our Bodies Are Sacred
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?”
1 Corinthians 6:19, NIV
Our bodies are not separate from our spiritual lives. They are sacred spaces where the Spirit of God dwells. Caring for the body, listening to its communication, and becoming more present within it can be acts of healing and spiritual stewardship.
This does not mean that we will always feel comfortable in our bodies. For many people, especially those who have experienced trauma, reconnection must happen slowly and with care.
Embodiment is not a demand to love every sensation. It is an invitation to build a more compassionate relationship with ourselves, one moment and one choice at a time.
Experience This Work at the Holistic Therapist Conference
The 2026 Holistic Therapist Conference takes place October 1–4 at the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina.
This immersive gathering is designed for therapists and helping professionals who are ready to expand beyond traditional talk therapy and explore ethical, culturally responsive, and embodied approaches to holistic mental health.
In-person attendees can earn up to 17 CEs while learning, resting, connecting, and experiencing holistic practices in community.
From September 3 through September 18, you can save $100 on all in-person and virtual conference tickets in celebration of my 35th birthday. This is the final conference discount, and all tickets return to full price on September 19.
Live virtual tickets open September 3 for those who cannot travel to Boone. The virtual conference experience runs October 2–4 and includes the opportunity to earn up to 15 CEs. Virtual access is live only and does not include recordings.
Virtual VIP includes six months in the Holistic Healing Circle and a copy of Koya Webb’s Well-Being Rituals. Virtual VIP Mastermind also includes a three-hour business mastermind on October 9 from 12:00–3:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
Join Me for My PESI Therapeutic Yoga Training
On September 17, I will teach Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma, Anxiety and Depression, a full-day live PESI webinar focused on simple, science-backed movement and breathwork techniques for nervous system regulation.
We will explore accessible ways clinicians can work with breath, gentle movement, co-regulation, sound, and therapeutic yoga without requiring complicated poses or asking clients to get onto a yoga mat.
This training is for clinicians who want to understand how body-based practices can support trauma, anxiety, and depression while remaining practical, culturally responsive, and grounded in ethical clinical application.
Learn more about the PESI therapeutic yoga training
Go Deeper Through the Holistic Therapist Academy
The Holistic Therapist Academy is for licensed therapists and helping professionals who are ready to move beyond talk therapy and ethically integrate holistic healing into their clinical work.
The Academy provides a deeper pathway for developing the knowledge, personal embodiment, and practical skills required to support the whole person.
If this month’s exploration of somatics and the body is affirming the direction you want to take your work, join the waitlist for the next Academy cohort. Waitlist members will be the first to receive enrollment information and upcoming opportunities to become a Certified Holistic Therapist.
Join the Holistic Therapist Academy waitlist
Continue the Conversation on the Podcast
Throughout September, The Holistic Therapist Podcast will explore Somatics + The Body through teaching, practice, conversation, and community questions.
We will discuss why healing must include the body, experience a simple points-of-contact practice, talk with Koya Webb about well-being rituals, and answer common questions about somatics and ethical body-based care.
Listen to The Holistic Therapist Podcast
A Practice for This Month
Take a moment to notice where your body is being supported right now.
You might notice your feet meeting the floor, your body meeting a chair, or your hands resting somewhere comfortable.
You do not need to change your breathing or create a particular feeling. Simply notice what is present and what support is already available to you.
Then ask yourself:
What is my body communicating to me in this season, and what would it look like to listen with curiosity, compassion, and trust?
LeNaya Smith Crawford is a licensed marriage and family therapist, yoga teacher, and the founder of The Holistic Therapist™. She created The Holistic Therapist Method, a five-layer framework for whole-person healing, and hosts the Holistic Therapist Podcast: Integration. Embodiment. Expansion. Learn more .