Siân Marron is trauma-informed Spinal Energetics Practitioner & Intuitive Coach with expertise in mind-body alignment. She helps people reconnect with their body's innate wisdom so they can release unprocessed trauma and emotions from the body.
Have you ever found that no matter how much you try to relax, you still feel restless, anxious, wired, or tense? Oh, you are not alone.
For years, I chased the elusive mirage of calmness despite doing all the things. From sinking into a cheeky Epsom salt bath to repeating affirmations a gazillion times, journaling all my mad and irrational thoughts, or forcing myself to sit still and meditate, my calm was nowhere to be seen. Although these practices may be beneficial for overall vitality, if you’re trying to feel calmer and less anxious, they might not cut it.
But why?
The real reason you can’t relax isn’t that you need to try harder or do more. It could be because your body is holding onto a backlog of stored survival stress, an actual physiological imprint of unprocessed tension, emotions, and energy that never got to complete their cycle.
Let’s break that down a little bit.
The body remembers
The nervous system is designed to respond to stress with activation (fight or flight) and then naturally return to a state of calm once the perceived threat has passed. But when we don’t fully express or release that activation, whether because we had to suppress our emotions, freeze, or push through stress without recovering, the energetic charge stays trapped in the body.
According to Dr. Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing, trauma isn’t in the event itself but in the way it gets stored in the body when the survival response isn’t completed. This is why people can feel stuck in a loop of anxiety, muscle tension, shallow breathing, or even dissociation, even if they’re “safe” now. The body basically hasn’t gotten the memo, yet.
In The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk echoes this, explaining how trauma lives in the tissues, not just the mind. So basically, if we don’t address it at the body level, traditional relaxation and anxiety management techniques unfortunately won’t work. This was such a penny-drop moment for me and was the start of my journey in exploring what actually does work.
Why your usual coping tools aren’t helping you relax
Trying to “think” our way into relaxation when our nervous system is still in survival mode is like trying to turn off a fire alarm by telling it to stop ringing. The body needs a physical discharge of stored energy and a sense of safety to truly let go. This is one of the reasons many of my clients have been in talking therapy for years but only really started to feel better in their bodies when we began working together.
How to start releasing stored survival stress
If you want to feel better in your body and calmer, the key isn’t relaxing; it’s connecting or reconnecting with your body and its innate wisdom, because whether you know it or not, the body knows exactly what to do to heal and thrive. But sometimes, we just need reminding. We can help our bodies and energy fields complete the stress response and return to a regulated state. Here are three of the most powerful ways to do that:
1. Spinal energetics: Connecting with the body’s innate wisdom
Spinal Energetics works with the body’s natural energy flow and intelligence, helping to unwind stored tension, unprocessed emotions, and subconscious holding patterns. Through practitioner-client collaboration, the body builds the safety needed to discharge and unwind what it has been carrying, allowing for deeper relaxation and a smoother flow of energy throughout the body.
2. Human garage fascial maneuvers: Freeing stuck tension
Fascia is the connective tissue that wraps around every single muscle, tendon, nerve, and organ, and it holds onto trauma and stress. If fascia is tight or restricted, it keeps the nervous system locked in survival mode. Fascial Maneuvers, a powerful set of self-healing movements, help open up these restrictions, restoring fluidity and signaling to the body that it’s safe to relax.
You can download the Human Garage app for free, and their YouTube channel has many amazing educational videos and classes to follow along with. I recommend starting with the Stress Reset and going from there.
3. Somatic practices: Teaching your body it’s safe
The word soma simply means “body,” so I see somatic tools as different ways to shift from the mind into the body, which is essentially the key to regulating our nervous system and releasing stored survival stress. Instead of just trying to override stress with logic, somatic practices work by gradually expanding our nervous system’s capacity to feel sensations without snapping back into tension.
Through movement, breath, and awareness, we can create the space needed for tension to release and for a sense of safety to build from the inside out. Try this vagus nerve reset and my favorite exercise to nurture some calm in my body when I’m feeling overwhelmed.
Restoring balance & finding your calm
When we start to work with the body instead of against it, relaxation stops being something we have to force and instead becomes a natural state of balance we return to.
If you’re ready to stop fighting your body and start releasing stored stress, these modalities are a great place to start. You and your body don’t need to be fixed; you just need to complete what was once interrupted and reconnect with all parts and layers of who you are.
You don’t have to live in a state of tension. You can teach your body that it’s safe to let go.
If you’re ready to build safety in your body, welcome more peace, and restore balance, I’d love to support you. Let’s talk.
Read more from Siân Marron
Siân Marron, Spinal Energetics Practitioner & Coach
Siân Marron is trauma-informed Spinal Energetics Practitioner & Coach with expertise in mind-body alignment. She is an ex-probation officer with extensive experience with emotional health issues, who found energy and somatic work in the throes of burnout and anxiety. When it helped her completely heal from a 'lifelong' autoimmune disease, eliminate the anxiety, and get through a difficult divorce, she knew with every cell in body that she'd found her next calling. Now, nothing lights her up more than helping others heal and live brighter, more vibrant lives.
