🌿 Healing Shame & Guilt Through the Body: A Somatic Guide for Rooted Women
Shame and guilt are two of the most emotionally heavy experiences we carry especially as women raised to “be good,” “stay small,” and keep everyone else happy. But what happens when that weight starts to strangle your self-trust? Your power? Your peace?
Let’s get into it. This post unpacks the difference between shame and guilt, how they affect your body and identity, and gives you practical somatic tools to release both, so you can step into clarity, confidence and full-bodied self-leadership.
đź’” What Is Shame?
Shame is the deep-rooted, self-conscious belief that “I am not enough”. It doesn’t just critique what you did, it attacks who you are. Brené Brown defines it as:
“The intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.”
Unlike guilt (which is about actions), shame strikes your identity. It forms early from critical parenting, societal conditioning, trauma or cultural silencing and lives deep in the nervous system.
How Shame Feels:
Emotionally: powerlessness, humiliation, inner judgement
Physically: tight chest, shallow breathing, tension in the jaw or belly, urge to shrink or freeze
Mentally: overthinking, spiralling self-doubt, relentless inner critic
What Shame Looks Like:
Posture collapse: slumped shoulders, gaze avoidance, inward body language
Behaviour: hiding, self-sabotage, people-pleasing, perfectionism, defensiveness
Emotional shutdown or explosive reactions when triggered
🌿 Somatic Tools to Release Shame
Somatic psychology shows us that shame lives in the body especially in the freeze response. To release it, you must move it through.
EXERCISE A: Butterfly Expansion
Purpose: Unwinds freeze response and reclaims embodied openness
Instructions:
Stand tall, feet grounded.
Inhale as you fold your arms across your chest and slightly hunch inwards.
Exhale audibly (“haaah”) as you expand your arms wide, open your chest and tilt your head back.
Repeat slowly for 5–8 rounds, staying present with the sensation.
What it does: Opens the front body (where shame is held), resets posture, and signals to the nervous system: “It’s safe to be seen.”
EXERCISE B: Full Body Tapping
Purpose: Reconnects you to sensation, disrupts shame loops
Instructions:
Make gentle fists.
Tap rhythmically from the crown of your head, down your neck, arms, chest, belly, hips, thighs, and feet.
Focus on each body part. Say quietly: “This is my body. I’m safe here.”
Continue for 1–2 minutes.
What it does: Activates awareness, grounds you in the present moment, and clears stored tension.
What Is Guilt?
Guilt is the emotion you feel when you believe you’ve done something wrong. It focuses on actions, not identity. Think: “I made a mistake” vs. “I am the mistake.”
When healthy, guilt can help us course-correct. When distorted, it leads to shame, people-pleasing, and never-ending emotional debt.
How Guilt Feels:
Emotional: regret, self-blame, anxiety
Physical: tightness in the chest, stomach discomfort, overactivity
Mental: obsessive thoughts, replaying scenarios, harsh self-talk
What Guilt Looks Like:
Constant apologising or over-explaining
Taking on responsibilities that aren’t yours
Struggling to set boundaries, fearing you’ll “hurt” others
🌿 Somatic Tools to Release Guilt
To release guilt, we soothe the nervous system and return to self-compassion — not punishment.
EXERCISE C: Box Breathing + Heart Hold
Purpose: Calms guilt-driven anxiety and reconnects with self-compassion
Instructions:
Place one hand on your chest, one on your belly.
Inhale for 4 counts → Hold for 4 → Exhale for 4 → Hold for 4.
As you exhale, repeat softly: “I forgive myself. I am human.”
Repeat for 5 breath cycles.
What it does: Activates the vagus nerve, slows racing thoughts, and reinforces safety and grace.
EXERCISE D: Grounding Water Reset
Purpose: Redirects attention from guilt loops to physical sensation
Instructions:
Turn on cold water.
Let it run over your hands and wrists for 30 seconds. Focus on the feeling.
Switch to warm water and repeat.
Say out loud: “I release what isn’t mine to carry.”
What it does: Anchors you into the now, disengages thought spirals, and softens emotional intensity.
Shame vs. Guilt — Quick Comparison
Emotion - Shame
Root Belief - “I am bad / broken”
Body Experience - Freeze, contraction, nausea
Key Somatic Response - Expansion, tapping
Emotion - Guilt
Root Belief - “I did something wrong”
Body Experience - Chest tightness, tension
Key Somatic Response - Breath, sensory grounding
Final Word: You’re Not Broken. You’re Healing
Shame and guilt are not flaws. They’re flags from your nervous system that something needs tending to.
These tools aren’t just “nice to try”, they’re trauma-informed, nervous system approved and real damn effective. Use them daily.
Use them when you feel unworthy.
Use them when you need to remember who TF you are.
Ready to Go Deeper?
If this blog spoke to your soul, the Rooted Woman 6-Week Programme is your next step.
Inside, we do the identity work, nervous system healing and embodiment that makes healing permanent and powerful.
Click here to step into Rooted Woman
You don’t need fixing. You need reclaiming.
Natalia x