How Somatic Healing Can Help You Set Boundaries

(why they are so hard to set, and what your body is saying)

You know the feeling when someone asks you to stay late, take on the extra project, or help with a thing that is absolutely not your responsibility ( and is quite frankly, out of your capacity)? Or when you say yes to something you reaaally really didn't want to do?

Regulated people will likely take a moment to consider whether they want to, or have the capacity to say "yes". For some reason your brain skips that part and jumps straight to the "yes"....and then you're lying in bed at night with thoughts racing, wondering: why do I keep doing this??!

What I wish someone had told me about how to set boundaries:

I wish they'd told me that it's not a lack of willpower. It's not that you don't "know your worth". It's not even that you don't know how to set boundaries... Because for a long time I thought I was jus 'failing' at these things.

I wish someone had told me "Your body is doing what it learned to do to keep you safe." The very physical experience of jumping to 'yes', to saying what the other person want's to hear, can be a nervous system response to past experiences that it is still drawing on. It's biology - not personality!

• Maybe you were punished if you said 'no' as a kid, so your nervous system learnt to do everything perfectly so you didn't upset the emotions around you.

• Or perhaps you've always been the fixer that solves the problems - you have to say yes - because if you don't - who will?

So often these small acts of self sacrifice are mistaken as our personality. Being nice... The good girl... The responsible woman... The helpful one.

But if saying 'yes' doesn't feel good... it's a sign that it's not your personality running the show, but your nervous system.

That is why until you work with your body, no amount of 'just say no' advice is going to stick.

This is where somatic healing comes in. And if you've never heard of it, or you're not clear on what it means, you're in the right place!w

Ohrstücke, Gerd Rothmann

"I feel like my body is trying to tell me something but I don't know how to listen to it."

It is! Let me explain...

First, What Is Somatic Healing?

The word 'somatic' means 'of the body.' Somatic healing, sometimes called somatic experiencing or somatic therapy, is an approach to healing that works with the our experiences, sensations and body movement, not just the mind.

Most of us have been taught that if we want to change a behaviour, we need to think our way out of it... to understand it, analyse it, journal about it, talk about it. And while those things have their place, they often miss a crucial piece of the puzzle: our nervous system.

Somatic healing works directly with the nervous system, which is the part of you that decides, faster than conscious thought, whether you're safe or in danger. It's role os to constantly be scanning for danger, and it draws on past and primal experiences. It's the part of you that clenches your jaw, tightens your shoulders, or makes you go quiet and agreeable when someone pushes back on you.

In this sense, the nervous system 'remembers' the body patterns of our past experiences, so we can react and survive when we experience a similar threat. This is why lasting change happens when we address those patterns at a physical level, not just a cognitive one.

Why Can't You Set Boundaries? (Nervous System Explanation)

If you grew up in environments where keeping the peace was correlated with keeping yourself safe ( for example you grew up with parents who would shout if you did something wrong), then your nervous system learned a very specific lesson: If I don't upset anyone = I am safe, and that rocking the boat, disappointing someone, saying no = danger.

As an adult, even when there is no actual danger - like when saying no to a colleague or a family member is the entirely reasonable, adult thing to do - your nervous system fires off the same alarm it did when you were young.

Your heart rate spikes.

Your throat tightens.

You feel anxious, guilty, and slightly panicked.

You smile and say "yes"...

This is known as the fawn response: a stress response where we please, appease, agree, and over-accommodate others in order to feel safe. It's not a character trait you are born with, but rather a nervous system pattern developed to be genuinely protective at one point in your life.

It's also a complex resposnse to a world where inequalities and power dynamics mean that fawning has been necessitated to survive or get by.

The problem is that it is often old software that needs updating. The reason affirmations don't work is because when your nervous system has proof that saying no is dangerous, no script in the world will feel believable to the contrary. You might find your body quite literally will stop you - your throat constricts, your shoulders tighten and jaw clenches shut.

How Somatic Experiencing Helps You Rewire Your Boundary Pattern

This is what I love most about somatic work, and it's what makes it so different from just 'understanding' your patterns.

Somatic experiencing doesn't ask you to think yourself into safety. It helps you feel yourself into safety at a body level, where the pattern often resides.

When I started my own somatic healing journey, I realised that my lack of boundaries wasn't about not knowing I was allowed to have them. It was that my body had an enormous amount of stored charge around what might happen if I did. The fear of criticism. The fear of rejection. The fear that if I stopped being endlessly accommodating, people would leave or turn on me.

@backfromtheborderline

Somatic work helped me discharge some of that stored energy. Not by reliving every difficult experience, but instead by helping my nervous system experience very slowly, safely, in tiny steps, that it could survive the discomfort of a boundary. That the catastrophe my body had been bracing for wasn't actually coming - and if it did, I could handle it.

Over time, that can change a lot in your day to day living. For example, the email you reply to honestly, instead of agreeing, a meeting you leave having shared your honest thoughts instead, saying 'no, sorry, I can't do that' .

3 Gentle Somatic Exercises for Boundaries

You don't need to go deep into trauma work to start benefiting from somatics. In fact, you may already be practicing somatics and not know it! Here are three simple somatic exercises for boundaries that you can try right now, or save for the next time you feel that familiar people-pleasing panic rising. And if you want 1:1 guidance, book a discovery somatic session here.

1. Body Boundary Breath (Use before and after you respond)

Next time someone asks something of you, and you feel that reflex 'yes' coming: pause, take a conscious breath then ask if you can come back to them (whether it's in 5 minutes or a day, ask for what you need..)

In that space you've created for yourself, or to regulate when you feel the surge of adrenalin after, take one slow breath in through the nose for 4 counts, and out through the mouth for 6 counts and sense into the feeling of your feet on the floor.

Try this out now and see how it feels to be grounded in your body. It's not just a grounding technique; it's also giving your nervous system a chance to recognise that it's safe to take some space before and after responding to a 'threat'. The pause also allows the frontal cortex (logic brain) to come back online, allowing response rather than reaction.

2. The Body Scan for Yes and No

Bring to mind a time you said yes to something you didn't want to do. Where in your body you feel that. Is there tension? Contraction? Tightness? Heaviness?

Now think about something you genuinely, easily said yes to. What and where are those sensations? Notice where that feels different.

Over time, this practice helps you learn your body's language. Understand what is a gut "yes" and a gut "no" feel like, so you can sense into your true answer before you've even spoken it.

If you find it difficult to sense how you are feeling, this is exactly the kind of thing we can work on in a 1:1 somatic session. The more connection you have, the more choice you have.

3. Name the Somatic Sensation, Not the Story

When you feel anxious about setting a boundary, resist the urge to go into the story ('they'll be so angry, they'll think I'm selfish, what if they leave').

Instead, drop into the body and name what you feel. Is it tightness? Fluttery? Heat? Cold? Simply naming the physical sensation, without the narrative, starts to reduce the charge it holds.

"I can feel my heart racing, and I want to run"

Name other observations "I am in a safe space" " the walls are green"

"Name it to tame it" is one of the foundational tools in somatic experiencing, and it's deceptively powerful at removing the "emotional stories" we attach to these feelings...

The Missing Piece To Implementing Boundaries

Most boundary advice focuses on what to say and how to say it: Scripts, phrases, techniques - and I do love those! In fact, I have some in my Free Guide: Decoding the Fawn Response....

But if your nervous system believes that disappointing someone is genuinely dangerous, no script is going to help you feel calm enough to say it.

Somatic healing bridges that gap. It helps you build what I call body-level safety. A felt sense that you can disappoint someone, set a limit, choose yourself, and come out the other side just fine.

That's what makes boundaries feel easy, eventually. Not rehearsed scripts or sheer willpower... A nervous system that has genuinely updated its belief about what's safe.

Ready to Understand Your Body's Stress Patterns?

✨ Grab your free guide: Decoding the Fawn Response At Work

Understand why you keep saying yes at work when you're screaming no on the inside, and what to do instead.

If this resonated with you - if you're the woman who holds everything together for everyone else and has slowly lost herself in the process - I want you to know that what you're experiencing isn't a personal failing. It's a nervous system doing its job, and it can be gently, safely unwound.

Want to Go Deeper? Meet The Unhurried Body

My programme, The Unhurried Body, is designed for exactly the woman I've been describing in this post.

The one who is brilliant at her job, wonderful to everyone around her, looks like she has it all together, but is silently running on empty...

Inside The Unhurried Body, we use somatic practices, nervous system tools, and a whole lot of kindness to help you come home to yourself. Allow your boundaries, your rest, and your inner wisdom stop feeling like luxuries and start feeling like basics.

FIND OUT MORE

If we haven't met, I'm Victoria a holistic nervous system practitioner with a background in gut health nutrition and workplace wellbeing. I've been helping busy, stressed people to manage their stress and symptoms with a body-based approach for over 8 years. I belive in a personalised and holistic approach that includes joy and play - healing isnt always heavy ;)

Book a free 20 min curiosity call - we'll chat about where you are now, what you've tried, and you can see if this work is right for you.