The Body Remembers — Emotional Healing in Physical Illness

Your body has been speaking this whole time—through tight jaws, heavy shoulders, and the ache that won’t quit—and today we slow down enough to hear it. We explore how symptoms can hold unprocessed emotions, grief we never voiced, and even ancestral stories we’ve been carrying without knowing. Through the lens of curanderismo and grounded somatic tools, we map what the body remembers and learn how to move stuck energy with compassion instead of force.

I share personal moments, from a thrown-out back to my current breast cancer journey, and the surprising ways these chapters opened conversations about control, caretaking, lineage, and the places I still needed to receive support. We walk through a gentle body scan, a short somatic release practice, and a golden light visualization you can return to whenever you feel overwhelmed. Along the way, we reframe tears and trembling as sacred releases, not weaknesses; we talk boundaries as medicine; and we honor humor, prayer, and community as steady companions when the path gets hard.

If your body has been sending signals—fatigue, migraines, chest tightness, or that quiet exhaustion language can’t capture—this conversation offers practical and soulful ways to listen and respond. You’ll leave with journaling prompts to clarify what needs attention, a few ritual tools from curanderismo to help energy move, and simple phrases that invite safety back into your nervous system. Subscribe for more healing-centered episodes, share this with someone who needs a tender nudge, and leave a review to help others find this space. What part of your body are you ready to listen to today?

Chapters

• 0:00 The Body Speaks Before Words
• 2:46 When Suppression Becomes Symptoms
• 5:20 Back Pain, Control, And Responsibility
• 6:56 Breast Cancer And Ancestral Roots
• 10:20 Guided Body Scan Check-In
• 15:55 Curanderismo And Moving Energy
• 20:18 Somatic Release Mini Practice
• 24:08 Surrender, Humor, And Treatment Plan
• 29:10 Journaling Prompts For Honest Listening

Transcript

Dora: 0:06

Ay Mijita. Have you ever noticed how your body speaks before your mouth, even knows what to say? That tight chest, when you're anxious, that stomach ache before a difficult conversation? The migraine after holding in too many tears. Welcome back to Ay Mijita, Embracing Your Raíces, Reclaim Your Essencia. I'm your host, Dora Alicia Praxedis and today's episode is one that heads close to home. We're diving into how the body remembers what the mind tries to forget. This episode is for every mujer, every soul listening who's carried pain in silence, who's felt something in their body that no doctor could quite explain. The truth is, your body is wise. It's talking to you, it's communicating stories, memories, and emotions that have never truly been witnessed. And I know this intimately, through my own journey with personal physical illness, through the grief, and even through my recent breast cancer diagnosis, I've learned that healing isn't just physical, it's emotional, it's energetic. So today I want to help you reconnect with your body's wisdom to listen with compassion instead of frustration, to soften instead of push. Take a deep breath with me right now. And then exhale. And I want you to do that once more, but inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth. And you know what? Why not? One more. Inhale and exhale. You're safe here, Mihita. Let's begin. The exhaustion, inflammation, that deep ache that just wouldn't go away, I just kept pushing through. I told myself, I just need rest. But rest never came. Because I wasn't listening to what my body was really saying. Our bodies are storytellers. They hold the memories we couldn't process, the traumas we survived, and the emotions we never expressed. When we suppress, the body starts to express. For example, I remember especially with the throat tightening when I don't speak my truth. Or the stomach burns when we swallow anger, and we kind of feel the tears going, you know, streaming down the eyes, kind of thing, when I'm super angry. The shoulders ache when we carry everyone else's burdens. And those are just a few examples. Your body keeps core, not to punish you, but to protect you. It's saying, pay attention. Something here needs love. Like now, I have been through quite a bit of illnesses throughout my lifetime, and at my short age of 38. Um, that's where at 30 I threw out my back and I couldn't walk for two weeks. And the back issues, I I do have this book called Metaphysical Anatomy with from Everett Rose, and I referred to it quite a bit. And I looked up like my back issue, and it was because I felt a sense of responsibility for all those around me, and I like to control, which is definitely accurate, and so I like this book a lot because it really explains what's happening with your body in correlation to the illness or the dis ease that we have manifesting in our body. And I went through the questions and things of that nature, and so fortunately, I believe that there is a correlation between what's happening happening in your life and with your body and what kind of comes out. The most recent one, though, is my breast cancer, right? And it took me about a month, so it was probably like three weeks ago I sat down and I finally opened the book and I looked up what breast cancer means. And that's where I came to the realization that this tumor, this thing that's growing in me, it's related to my ancestral healing. It's related back to the woman in my life, those before me, are unable to demonstrate the emotions that they really feel. And I can honestly say that with my mom and my grandma, they don't really, I know my grandma for a fact. She hasn't grieved. And my grandpa has passed, it's been over eight years now. And that's something that's a conversation I'm preparing myself for is to one share with my grandma my diagnosis. And it's been really difficult because I know that there's going to be stuff that comes up for her, especially because my grandfather died of prostate cancer. And so it does run in the family. Um, my grandfather, my mom's dad, had a sister that she died of breast cancer when she was 28. And I did take the genetics test, and it did come out negative, which is great. It's called the Braca test. And they also tested me for like 80 other things. Um, one of them did come back, but there's not enough studies they can do, or there's no cure at the moment. And I it was too complicated for me to read into it. I Googled it and it Google still kind of came back with things. I mean, I could try Chat GPT, but I'm not there yet. Let's just handle one thing at a time. So I've been realizing that your illnesses are connected to emotional suppression. And there's also guilt, the grief, and me caretaking, right? And how I feel that sense of responsibility. And that's when I started realizing, oh wow, there's a lot here that I have to process. So I'm gonna invite you to pause and reflect here. Where in your body do you feel tension right now? What emotion might live there? And let's just do a quick body scan or check-in. And if you have a moment, you could just have the stillness or if you're like driving or if you're doing something, just take note and bring awareness to your jaw. Is there something there? Do you clench your jaw? Do you grind your teeth? And let's go down to the shoulders. Do you feel tension there? Like knots in your shoulders? Become aware. And now let's move to your chest. And if it feels good you can put a hand in your heart. And as you breathe in and out, do you notice constriction in your chest? And then moving down to your belly. Do you have any feelings coming up there? And notice without judgment how each part feels. What's the story your body wants to tell you today? Just notice it. You can stay here with a pause. Every emotion carries energy. And when that energy doesn't move, it stagnates. We see it from the form of fatigue, illness, burnout, anxiety. In curandrismo, we understand that illness is both physical and spiritual. When energy is blocked, whether from trauma, resentment, or fear, the body mirrors that imbalance. So how do we begin to move that energy? Well, first through awareness, compassion, and sacred practices that reconnect us to the body. So this is where I love to integrate limpias. And that's where I personally do limpias with the webbo, with an egg, or herbs. And that's one way to shift that energy. Especially with tears, releasing those. And tears are sacred, and they're a sacred release. And I know sometimes like I sob, I sit in my closet. Besides recording podcasts in my closet, I like to sit in my closet because I like to like think and cry. And I don't know why I've always like that was my go-to ever since I was a kid. But crying, yeah. I not that I love to cry, but that's my first go-to is releasing through that. Listening to your body, that's where honor, if it wants to move, it wants to release something. It's a matter of just paying attention and doing that check-in that we just did. Every time you cry, you shake, sweat, or yawn, that's energy leaving your body. That's your nervous system releasing what's been stuck. So let's do a mini practice here, and I'll guide you through a short exercise here to release. It's called a somatic release. So when you're ready, you just come to a seated position. And I want you to place a hand over your heart and another over your belly. And inhale deeply and exhale with a sigh. Gently shake your hands. Shake your arms. Loosing your neck. Imagine energy flowing out through your fingertips. Releasing tension. Releasing pain. And whisper to yourself. It's safe to feel. It's safe to release. And when you're ready, you can come back. Open your eyes if you have them closed. Wiggle your hands and feet, your toes, your fingers. When we bring curiosity instead of judgment, that's where healing begins. Your body's not against you, it's working for you, corazon. Healing through illness isn't about fixing yourself. It's about listening. Your body might be slowing you down so you can finally come to yourself. For me, this journey reminded me of surrender, of trusting divine timing, even when life felt uncertain. There were days I was angry, scared, frustrated, and yet every breath brought me closer to peace. And that's me right now. I'm so frustrated at times because I don't know what would happen or what's going to happen in the future. I'm going to embark in this in the surgeries in the beginning of November. I'm going to have one where they're going to take both of my breasts out. So they're going to do a bilateral massectomy. And then on the following week, they're going to reconstruct my breasts using my own tissue from my stomach. So in a sense, it's a breast, they're they're reconstructed with my own tissue, meaning they're going to take my tummy. So I'm going to get a tummy tuck and I'm going to get a boob job. Um, and now that I've had about two months to really process all this information, I've and um I have humor, right? And so not everybody shares that same humor. Obviously, it's a big like balde de agua fría. It's a big cold bucket when they find out what's going on with me. I know my mom just recently shared it with my with my tos and my dias and stuff. Um, and they've been reaching out, which is great. And I'm just asking for a lot of thoughts and prayers. I have a lot of things that I don't know how they're gonna go. And right now I'm focusing on surgery. I know chemotherapy will be coming up shortly after my body heals just to make sure that all the cancer cells are killed. And I know it's a process because it's gonna be four to six months of that. I'm hopeful that my body will definitely resist. So yeah, it is a little scary. But that's where I know I'm in great hands with my doctors. I have a great support system at home and around me with all my family and friends. One of my friends is actually taking a couple days off. And oh my gosh, she made me cry because this receiving thing, I am now learning how to genuinely just receive and not say, oh no, I'm okay, like or we got it. It's genuinely coming from the heart, from the people around me. So talking with all these emotions, I try to think positive, but then again, I do go into these negative negative spirals, and I try to alchemize, meaning I try to transmute this negative stuff, energies, feelings, emotions, all the works into something positive, like knowing there's a lesson in all this. So when you tend to your body with love, the rest, movement, breath, prayer, you turn your pain into power. You rewrite your story. So I just want you to know you're not broken. Hermoso, hermosa, you're remembering yourself. Somewhere in there, deep down in you, you have yourself coming out. It's this part of you that wants to pay it to pay attention. There is truly medicine in all this suffering, and medicine could look like setting boundaries with yourself, could be respect to yourself and respecting those boundaries. And what is it that you're gonna tolerate? Or what is it that you're not? So this is without your your opportunity to actually put these things into practice. So let's take a pause here for a sec. And I want you to journal and meditate on the following. Number one, what part of my body has been asking for my attention lately? And that's where I really sit with it. And again, you could pause this or come back or take a mental note of what comes up for you. Number two, what emotion have I been avoiding? That's where with my clients I actually have a method, the emotion code, that I work through them, um, with them actually, um, and I'm able to assess what are the emotions that are trapped in your body. And it's a pretty cool tool. So hit me up if you are interested in knowing what is trapped in your in your body of emotion. Number three. What would my body say if it could speak freely? And I know my body's gonna be like, bitch, we've been through a lot. Um I that's where my body screams at me sometimes, especially with my lower back. Um, on Saturday, I took Julian, my du my son, um, to a concert with my sister, and we went to go see Cuko, which I honestly have never I mean I've heard of him, I guess, because the kids, right? Like my son and my daughter listened to him. But did I know the songs? Nope. And my sister did her homework, which is great. But for me, I was standing for such a while that my my back was like starting to go out. It was like three hours we were standing there because it was a two-hour show, and then we got there like an hour earlier or whatnot. But that's where my body was saying, girl, we're too old for this. Like we, yeah, it was fun. It was like a great concert. There was a live band, the kid knows what he's doing. Um, he looks like he's 12. So he said that he had 10 years into his career, and I'm thinking, Wow, 10 years? What was he like two when he started? It's it's just you know, again. Um, and then my knees, my legs, you know, the work the works, and all these kiddos are, you know, it was just standing. Um, next time I'm gonna probably do balcony seats um or a seat somewhere because yeah, I'm I I mean I would love to enjoy the show, but standing thing is not my jam. So, number four, what does healing mean to me right now? What does it look like for you right now? Is it crying? Is it writing it out? Journaling? Or automatic writing? Is it screaming because you're angry? Like, how is it that your your healing means to you right now? So I want you to take a few moments and really really hone in on these questions because you're definitely moving, you're doing a lot of work. And then we'll move into our another meditation somatic practice next. Now find a comfortable space. And if you're driving or on the move, you could definitely come back to this, because I do want you to do this, or come come back to it as many times as you like. But find a comfortable space, close your eyes, and let's take three slow breaths. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale longer. Feel your body supported beneath you. Melting into the chair. If you're laying down into the bed. Now imagine a soft golden light above your head. It's warm, loving, gentle. That light begins to pour into your crown, into the top of your head. Down your neck. Through your shoulders. Into your chest. And follow it through and how it flows into every cell. Soothing pain. Releasing memories, softening tension. As this light moves, repeat silently. I forgive myself for the times I ignored my body. I am safe in my body. I am learning to listen. Now bring your awareness back to your heart. Place your hand on your heart and whisper Gracias cuerpo. Thank you, body. Thank you for carrying me through it all. And if you have tears of release, remember that is one way. It's a sacred release. And when you're ready, inhale peace and exhale resistance. You are home. Home in your body and tuerpo. And you can close this practice with a huge hug to yourself, a huge squeeze. I call it the sacred hug. Mean you're ready? You can open your eyes, wiggle your hands, your toes, your fingers, do the shimmy shimmy, like shake your shoulders. And welcome back. If this episode resonated deeply and you're realizing your body's been trying to tell you something, I want to personally invite you to into a deeper space of healing with me. I've opened up a few one-on-one coaching spots for women who are ready to understand the emotional root of what's showing up in their bodies. Whether it's anxiety, illness, burnout, or just that inner exhaustion that words can't describe. So inside all these coaching calls will work through emotional healing, boundaries, and energetic cleansing so you can reconnect to your body with compassion and reclaim your peace. You can visit dorapraxedis.com to try to see availability there, or you can DM me on Instagram at Dpraxedis to apply to one of these sacred sessions. You don't have to carry this alone. I'm here with you. Walking through it. I'm here to hold your hand and be a support and a guide with you. Or you can tag me on Instagram at Dpraxedis and let me know what part of your body you're finally learning to listen to. And remember, healing isn't linear. You know, you kinda get the drone. You're allowed to rest, to cry, to be tender with yourself. Because when you listen to your body, you return home. And you're starting healing. Until next Thursday, my corazones. I want you to embrace your races, reclaim your senses.