S1 ep. 3: The Body Knows What the Mind Forgot

Season 1, EPISODE 3 TRANSCRIPT:

“Welcome back to Priestess Initiations: The Goddess Coven. I'm Casey and this is Episode 3.

Today we're talking about why the body matters. Why you can't think your way through initiation. Why descent work that stays in your head isn't actually descent at all.

If you've been doing spiritual work or personal growth for a while, you've probably noticed something: you can understand something intellectually—you can know it's true, you can talk about it articulately—and still be completely stuck in the pattern. That's because the knowing is in your head, not in your body.

And the body? The body knows what the mind forgot. The body holds the truth your mind has been avoiding. The body is where transformation actually happens.

Let's start with why this matters for initiation and descent work.

When you go through an initiation—trauma, loss, rupture, disintegration—your body holds the experience. Not just your mind. Not just your emotions. Your body.

Trauma lives in your tissues. Fear lives in your nervous system. Grief lives in your chest, your throat, your belly. Rage lives in your jaw, your fists, your spine. These aren't metaphors. This is physiology.

Your body remembers everything your mind has tried to forget. It remembers the moment you learned you weren't safe. The moment you learned you had to be small to be loved. The moment you learned your voice didn't matter. The moment something broke that you couldn't put back together.

And here's what happens: your mind moves on. Your mind creates stories, rationalizations, coping mechanisms. Your mind says, 'I'm over it. I've processed it. I understand why it happened.' But your body? Your body is still there, still holding the contraction, still braced for impact, still waiting for permission to release.

This is why you can do years of talk-based work—insight after insight, understanding after understanding—and still feel stuck. Because the work stayed in your head. The body was never invited into the process.

And the goddesses? The goddesses work through the body. Persephone's descent is felt in your bones. Lilith's rage is felt in your blood. Medusa's gaze is felt in your spine straightening, your power returning. Isis's reassembly happens through your hands, your breath, your heartbeat.

You can't become sovereign by thinking about sovereignty. You have to embody it. You have to feel it in your tissues, practice it in your movements, breathe it into your nervous system.

Descent work that doesn't include the body is incomplete. It's spiritual bypassing in a different form—staying in the mind to avoid feeling what's actually alive in your body.

So what does it mean to work somatically? What does it mean to bring the body into the descent?

I have a Master's Degree in Body Psychotherapy, and what that training taught me is that the body is not a vehicle for the mind—it's not just carrying your head around. The body is intelligent. The body has its own knowing. The body speaks in sensation, not words.

Somatic work means paying attention to what's happening in your body, right now, in this moment. Not analyzing it. Not interpreting it. Just noticing it.

What sensations are present? Where do you feel tightness, openness, heat, cold, aliveness, numbness? What's your breath doing? Is it shallow and held, or deep and easeful? What's the quality of your energy—contracted or expansive, frozen or flowing?

This is the language of the body. And most of us have forgotten how to speak it.

We live in a culture that's deeply disembodied. We're taught to override our body's signals—push through exhaustion, ignore hunger, suppress tears, smile when we're angry. We're taught that the body is something to control, to perfect, to transcend.

But the body isn't the problem. The body is the path.

When you're in an initiation, your body will tell you before your mind catches up. You'll feel the tightness in your chest before you can name the grief. You'll feel the clench in your jaw before you can admit you're enraged. You'll feel the collapse in your spine before you realize you've given your power away.

And when you're ready to reclaim something—your voice, your boundaries, your pleasure, your wildness—your body will show you how. Not through thinking about it, but through practicing it. Through standing differently, breathing differently, moving differently.

Embodiment is the practice of coming home to your body. Of listening to what it's telling you. Of letting it guide you through the descent instead of dragging it along behind your racing mind.

And here's what I've learned through my own work: the body doesn't lie. Your mind can rationalize, spiritualize, bypass. But your body? Your body tells the truth. Always.

If your body is tense, you're not as 'healed' as you think. If your body contracts when someone enters the room, you're not as 'over it' as you've convinced yourself. If your body goes numb when you talk about something, there's medicine there you haven't touched yet.

The body knows. And the body will wait—patiently, persistently—until you're ready to listen.

One of the most important things to understand about the body is the nervous system. Because your nervous system is running the show, whether you're aware of it or not.

Your nervous system has different states. You've probably heard of fight or flight—that's your sympathetic nervous system activating when it perceives threat. Your heart races, your breath quickens, your muscles tense. You're ready to fight or run.

There's also freeze—that's when your system perceives a threat it can't fight or flee from, so it shuts down. You go numb, dissociate, collapse. This is a protective response. Your system is saying, 'I can't handle this, so I'm going offline.'

And there's fawn—the people-pleasing response. When fight, flight, and freeze aren't options, your system tries to appease the threat. You become accommodating, compliant, focused on making others comfortable so you'll be safe. A lot of women live in fawn state because it's how we were taught to survive.

And then there's the ventral vagal state—the state of safety and social engagement. This is when your nervous system feels safe enough to be present, to connect, to rest. Your breath is easeful, your body is relaxed, you're available for relationship and pleasure.

Most of us move through these states all day, every day, without realizing it. And if you've been through trauma or ongoing stress, your system might be stuck in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. You might be hypervigilant, always scanning for danger. Or you might be numb, disconnected, going through the motions. Or you might be constantly accommodating others, unable to access your own needs or boundaries.

Why does this matter for initiation and descent work?

Because you can't do deep transformational work if your nervous system doesn't feel safe enough. If you're in fight/flight, you're in survival mode—there's no capacity for integration, for feeling, for presence. If you're in freeze, you're shut down—there's no access to your body's wisdom. If you're in fawn, you're so focused on others that you can't feel yourself.

Deep work requires a nervous system that's regulated enough to stay present with discomfort without collapsing or running away. And that's a practice. That's something you build.

This is why I emphasize grounding, breath work, orienting to your environment, resourcing—all of these are ways to help your nervous system feel safe enough to do the work.

And this is why you can't rush initiation. Your system needs time to integrate. Your body needs time to process. Pushing yourself to 'get through it faster' just retraumatizes your nervous system. It teaches your body that it's not safe to feel, to slow down, to be present.

The descent happens at the pace your body can hold. Not the pace your mind wants. Not the pace the self-help industry tells you it should. The pace your body needs.

And part of reclaiming your sovereignty is learning to honor that pace. To trust your body's wisdom. To let your nervous system guide you instead of overriding it.

So when I say the body knows what the mind forgot, I'm speaking from lived experience. My body has been my greatest teacher. And it's been the most honest one.

The goddesses aren't ideas. They're forces you feel. And when you know where they live in your body, you can call them in when you need them. You can embody them. You can let them work through you.

Let's talk about the difference between embodied spirituality and 'spirituality in your head.'

A lot of spiritual and personal growth work is deeply disembodied. It's all about transcendence—getting above the body, above the emotions, above the mess of being human. It's about 'raising your vibration,' 'manifesting,' 'thinking positive,' 'choosing love over fear.'

And while some of that can be useful, it often becomes another way to avoid the body. Another way to bypass what's actually happening in your lived experience.

Embodied spirituality says: you don't transcend the body to reach the divine. The body IS the divine. The body is the temple. The body is where the goddesses live.

Embodied spirituality says: descend INTO the body, not away from it. Feel the grief, the rage, the pleasure, the aliveness. Let your body be the container for transformation, not the thing you're trying to escape.

This is what the goddesses teach. They're not ethereal beings floating in some abstract spiritual realm. They're fierce, embodied, bloody, sexual, wild. They live in your bones, your blood, your breath.

Persephone descends into the body of the earth. Lilith is exiled into the wilderness of the body. Medusa's power is in her gaze, her physicality, her refusal to be controlled. Isis uses her hands to reassemble the body of Osiris. Kali dances on Shiva's body, drenched in blood.

If your spirituality is all light and no body, all transcendence and no descent—you're missing half the work. You're missing the goddesses who live in the shadows, in the depths, in the wild, untamed places of the body.

Embodiment is not about perfecting your body or making it more 'spiritual.' It's about coming home to your body exactly as it is—scarred, soft, strong, vulnerable, wild, sacred."

Let's close with a simple embodiment practice. You can do this right now, wherever you are. If you're driving, just stay present with your body. If you're sitting, walking, lying down—perfect.

Take a breath. Not a 'good' breath, just notice the breath you're already taking. Is it shallow or deep? Held or flowing? Fast or slow? Don't change it. Just notice.

Now bring your attention to your body. Not to think about your body, but to feel it from the inside.

Notice your feet on the ground, or wherever they are. Feel the contact. Feel the support beneath you—the chair, the floor, the earth.

Notice your spine. Is it curved, straight, collapsed, tall? Again, no judgment. Just notice.

Scan through your body. Where do you feel tension? Where do you feel ease? Where do you feel nothing at all—numbness, disconnection?

And now, just for a moment, ask your body: What do you need me to know right now?

Don't think about the answer. Feel for it. It might come as a sensation, an image, an impulse to move or breathe differently. It might not come at all, and that's okay too.

Just practice listening. Practice coming home.

This is the beginning of embodiment. This is how you start to hear what your body has been trying to tell you.

Everything we explore here lives in practice. Link in bio for our free community, where you'll find our Ritual Grimoire, Embodiment Library, and online workshops diving deeper into the work.

If this work is serving you and you want to support the podcast, I have a Patreon where you get monthly new moon rituals, the ability to list your business in our Coven Shop, and more—including sliding scale pricing for my wedding officiant services. Link in bio. Your support helps me keep creating this content and building the coven.

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Trust the spiral.

This podcast is spiritual teaching, not therapy or medical advice."

This material is protected by copyright, Casey Dunne.

From Priestess Initiations: The Goddess Coven: S1 Ep.3 The Body Knows What the Mind Forgot, Nov 19, 2025