Your body remembers what your mind refuses to Meaning Factcheck Usage

Your body remembers what your mind refuses to process. It’s a powerful truth I’ve seen play out time and again in my work. The mind can bury trauma, but the body keeps the score, manifesting that unresolved energy as physical symptoms. It’s our built-in alarm system that won’t be ignored forever.

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Table of Contents

Meaning

The core idea is that unprocessed emotional or psychological trauma doesn’t just vanish; it gets stored in our physical form and can manifest as illness, pain, or chronic stress.

Explanation

Think of your mind as a sophisticated, but sometimes overzealous, secretary. It files away overwhelming experiences—things that are too painful, scary, or shameful to deal with in the moment—into a locked drawer. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Well, not exactly. Your body is the filing cabinet itself, and it bears the weight of all that stored material. The tension in your shoulders, that gut feeling you can’t shake, the mysterious headaches… these aren’t random. They are often the body’s only language for expressing what the mind has silenced. It’s a somatic echo.

Quote Summary

Context	Attributes
Original Language	English (3668)
Category	Health (243)
Topics	healing (82), memory (50), trauma (3)
Literary Style	direct (414), reflective (255)
Emotion / Mood	somber (55)
Overall Quote Score	88 (131)

Origin & Factcheck

This specific phrasing comes from Dr. Jessica Shepherd, a OB/GYN and women’s health expert, in her 2021 book “Love Yourself Well,” published in the United States. While the concept is ancient and echoed in the work of pioneers like Bessel van der Kolk (“The Body Keeps the Score”), this particular, elegant wording is rightly attributed to her.

Attribution Summary

Context	Attributes
Author	Dr. Jessica Shepherd (57)
Source Type	Book (4032)
Source/Book Name	Love Yourself Well: An Empowering Wellness Guide to Supporting Your Gut, Brain, and Vagina (57)
Origin Timeperiod	21st Century (1892)
Original Language	English (3668)
Authenticity	Verified (4032)

Where is this quotation located?

Quotation	Your body remembers what your mind refuses to process
Book Details	Publication Year/Date: 2023; ISBN/Unique Identifier: 9780063289408; Last Edition: 1st Edition; Number of Pages: 288.
Where is it?	Chapter 6: Listening to the Vagina, Approximate page from 2023 edition

Context

Dr. Shepherd places this quote in the context of holistic women’s wellness. She connects it directly to how chronic stress and unresolved emotional baggage can physically impact the gut-brain-vagina axis, leading to very real conditions like IBS, anxiety, and hormonal imbalances. It’s not just poetic; it’s physiological.

Usage Examples

This is such a versatile piece of wisdom. I use it with:

• Clients stuck in talk therapy: For the person who can intellectualize their trauma but can’t *feel* it or move past physical symptoms. I might say, “Your mind understands what happened, but let’s check in with what your body remembers.”
• Anyone with unexplained chronic pain: That client with the persistent backache that scans can’t explain? This quote opens the door to exploring the emotional weight they might be carrying.
• People in high-stress careers: The executive who “handles” immense pressure but then suffers from insomnia and gut issues. It’s a wake-up call that their resilience strategy might be creating a physical debt.

To whom it appeals?

Context	Attributes
Theme	Wisdom (1754)
Audiences	coaches (1277), patients (69), psychologists (197), therapists (555), writers (363)
Usage Context/Scenario	healing literature (1), mental health awareness (23), psychology classes (24), therapy content (2), trauma recovery talks (1)

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Common questions

Question: Does this mean all my physical problems are in my head?

Answer: Absolutely not, and this is a critical distinction. The problems are very real and very physical. The *origin* of some of these problems, however, can be rooted in unprocessed psychological stress. It’s about the mind-body connection, not dismissing your pain.

Question: So how do I “process” what my body remembers?

Answer: This is the key. You have to move beyond just talking. Somatic therapies, yoga, breathwork, EMDR, even certain types of massage can help release the trauma stored in the body’s tissues and nervous system. You’re giving the body a voice to speak its truth.

Question: Can this apply to smaller, everyday stresses, not just major trauma?

Answer: 100%. It’s like a cup filling up drop by drop. A constant, low-grade stress at a job you hate, a lingering resentment in a relationship—your body is keeping track of all of it. The mechanism is the same.